222 
The Ruby-Throated Hummingbird 
The Least 
of Birds 
constantly on the wing; but in reality it is only so while it is collecting 
food, either the honey from flowers or the small aphis with which it feeds 
its young, and it spends quite as much time in perching as any other bird. 
Dead twigs of hemlock or Norway spruce make favorite perches here in 
my New England garden, and it often seems as if the dainty little thing 
chose the twigs with conscious regard to the color-protection of his sur- 
roundings, when, lo ! he is off again, and this times perches in the open 
on a taut wire, where the light plays on every ruby feather of his gorget, 
making him conspicuous out of all proportion to his size. 
While he rests thus, preening first one wing and then the other, it is a 
fine chance to study the bird in detail — the upper parts feathered in 
glistening green, with metallic tints of purple and blue upon wings and 
tail, and the wonderful ruby throat, separated from 
the dull, gray-green breast by a line of light. From 
the end of his needle-like bill to the tail-tip he meas- 
ures a trifle under three and one-fourth inches, while the wings that make 
the resonant hum, suggesting the motive power of a machine rather than 
of a bird, measure only about one and a half inches on each side of the 
body. Truly this is our “least” bird. 
So slim and compact is the Hummingbird that, seen at the usual dis- 
tance, its plumage has more the appearance of metal-work than the shaft 
and down of feathers. Its voice also has the sharp squeak of metallic 
contact, and is utterly unlike the usual bird note. I have heard precisely 
the same tone from a mouse. But, at close range, all these qualities arc 
transformed. This is a case when a bird in the hand gave me a different 
idea of that same bird in the bush, forevermore. 
Let it be distinctly understood, however, that the coming within range 
of my touch was by way of succor, and not by way of capture. Many 
times as the same thing has happened, the first is the best remembered, 
like many other first times, from the combination of surprise and novelty. 
It was at the beginning of rose time. The long-tubed honeysuckles 
on the back porch brought the Hummingbirds in close range with the din- 
ing-room window, and, apparently fearless, they came to* and fro during 
all the daylight hours, sometimes conversing in amicable squeaks, and then 
again waging a warfare of evidently angry words and 
Tenants of a 
Honeysuckle 
beak-thrusts, even though the pair were mates, one 
with the ruby throat and the female without, after 
the family custom. 
The lower part of the large window was screened by wire netting ; the 
upper sash, with its diamond panes backed by the partly darkened room, 
made a series of mirrors, in which the male bird presently spied his own 
reflection. Could a high-spirited cavalier allow a rival not only to be in 
the same garden but to be hovering above the very honeysuckle with Mrs. 
Ruby ! Forward and back went Sir Ruby, fencing with the reflection first 
in one pane and then another, squeaking shrilly, and gradually coming so 
close that he struck the pane recklessly Then came a slip and a des- 
