224 
The Ruby-Throated Hummingbird 
the eggs were laid ; had the birds been hatched, the nest would have given 
them but poor protection. The condition of this nest is apparently ex- 
plained by two cases that I have watched in the garden, when, after the 
young were hatched, the mother bird built up the nest about them as they 
Feeding 
Fledglings 
grew. 
The eggs of the Ruby-throat, and of all other kinds of Humming- 
birds are only two, and are pure white. 
After the nesting season is over the males are seen again about the 
flowers, though greatly outnumbered by Hummers lacking the ruby throat. 
This, however, is easily accounted for by the fact that the young of 
the year, both males and females, are plumed like the mother. 
One spectacle in the home life of the Ruby-throat is rather awful 
until you fully understand the cause, and know that the mother is not 
trying to choke her children to death. She feeds them by regurgitation ; 
that is, she pumps the food, first softened in her own crop, down the 
little throats by means of her own beak, which she 
thrusts into their gaping mouths. Early bird students 
saw this process the other way about, saying that 
Hummers, Pigeons, etc., pushed their beak into their parents’ crops for 
food — hence the term “sucking doves.” 
In the Hummingbird we have a species that makes its appeal through 
beauty of form and grace of flight, rather than through any economic 
consideration. Beauty as an excuse for being has, however, long since 
been accepted as a fact. And yet it was through beauty that, at one time, 
this elusive little bird was almost doomed to extinction, for it is not 
so many years ago when a wreath of Hummingbirds upon a festal hat 
was not a rare sight. Public opinion, in the United States at least, 
will no longer stand for such senseless waste and barbarity. Of no 
use for food, a difficult prey for either cat or snake, the Ruby-throat 
should escape most of the ills that befall our native birds, and continue 
with us when larger birds grow rare. 
Unlike many birds of unique plumage or tropical colors, the Hum- 
mingbird family belongs entirely to the New World, and is most nu- 
merous in the mountains of South America. Of the five hundred or 
more known species, only eighteen reach the United States, and but few 
of these pass far north of our Mexican boundary. 
Classification and Distribution 
The Ruby-throat belongs to the Order Macrochlres, Suborder Trochili and 
Family Trochilidcs. Its scientific name is Archilochus colubris. It is found in 
summer and breeds throughout the eastern United States from Florida to Mani- 
toba, Quebec and Nova Scotia; and it winters in Mexico and Central America. 
This and other Educational Leaflets are for sale, at 5 cents each, by the National Association of 
Audubon Societies, 1974 Broadway, New York City. Lists given on request. 
