May, 1905 | 
HUMMINGBIRD STUDIES 
61 
preened the feathers of his breast. Then he tried his wings. They began slowly 
as if getting up steam. He made them buzz till they fairly lifted him off his feet. 
He had to hang on to keep from 
going; he could fly but the time 
was not ripe. A little gnat 
buzzed slowly past within two 
inches of his eye. The nestling 
instinctively stabbed at the in- 
sect but fell short. Each bant- 
ling took turns at practising on 
the edge of the nest till they 
mastered the art of balancing 
and rising in the air. 
Below the hummer’s nest the 
water trickled down the basin 
of the canyon. One of these 
tiny pools was the hummer’s 
bath-tub. It was shallow 
enough at the edge for her to 
drop her feet and wade. For a 
moment her wing-tips and tail 
would skim the surface and it 
was all over. She dressed and adult rufous hummer sunning itself on clothes-line 
preened with all the formality 
of a queen. After the bath I watched her circle about the clusters of the geranium 
and drink at the honey-cups of the columbine. She seemed only to will to be at a 
flower and she was there; the 
hum of the wings was all 
th at told the secret. She 
was a marvel in the air. She 
backed as easily as she darted 
forward. She side-stepped, 
rose or dropped as easily as 
she poised. 
I have never known exact- 
ly what to think of the male 
rufous. I never saw sudh an 
enthusiastic lover during the 
days of courtship and the 
beginning of house-building. 
He simply ran crazy-mad in 
love. As soon as the cottony 
cup was finished and the 
mother had cradled her twin 
white eggs, the father dis- 
appeared. He merely dropped 
out of existence, as Bradford 
Torre}' says, leaving a widow 
YOUNG RUFOUS HUMMER W ‘ th tllC twi » S 011 ^ ll3ndS . 
This generally seems to be 
the case, for at the different nests where I have watched, I never but once saw a 
