RUFF-NECKED HUMMING-BIRD. 
201 
that for some time I searched the ground instead of the air, for the actor in 
the scene. At other times, the males were seen darting up high in the air, 
and whirling about each other in great anger, and with much velocity. 
After these manoeuvres the aggressor returned to the same dead twig, where 
for days he regularly took his station with all the courage and angry 
vigilance of a King-bird. The angry hissing or bleating note of his species 
seems something like wht ’t ’t ’ t ’t sh vee, tremulously uttered as it whirls 
and sweeps through the air, like a musket-ball, accompanied also by 
something like the whirr of the Night-hawk. On the 29th of May. I found 
a nest of this species in a forked branch of the Nootka Bramble, Rubus 
Nutlcanus. The female was sitting on two eggs, of the same shape and 
colour as those of the common species. The nest also was perfectly similar, 
but somewhat deeper. As I approached, the female came hovering round 
the nest, and soon after, when all was still, she resumed her place con- 
tentedly.” 
Mr. Townsend’s note is as follows : — “ Nootka Sound Humming-bird, 
Trochilus rufus, Ah-puets-Rinne of the Chinooks. On a clear day the 
male may be seen to rise to a great height in the air, and descend instantly 
near the earth, then mount again to the same altitude as at first, performing 
in the evolution the half of a large circle. During the descent it emits a 
strange and astonishingly loud note, which can be compared to nothing but 
the rubbing together of the limbs of trees during a high wind. I heard this 
singular note repeatedly last spring and summer, but did not then discover 
to what it belonged. I did not suppose it to be a bird at all, and least of 
all a Humming-bird. The observer thinks it almost impossible that so 
small a creature can be capable of producing so much sound. I have never 
observed this habit upon a dull or cloudy day.” 
Mr. Nuttall having presented me with the nest of this species attached 
to the twig to which the bird had fastened it, my amiable friend Miss 
Martin has figured it for me, as well as the plant, about which these lovely 
creatures are represented. The nest, which measures two inches and a 
quarter in height, and an inch and three quarters in breadth, at the upper 
part, is composed externally of mosses, lichens, and a few feathers, with 
slender fibrous roots interwoven, and lined with fine cottony seed-down. 
Trochilus rufus, Gmel. Syst. Nat., vol. i. p. 497. 
Trochilus (Selasphorus) rufus, Cinnamon or Nootka Humming-bird, Swains 
and Rich. F. Bor. Amer., vol. ii. p. 324. 
Ruffed-necked Humming-Bird, Trochilus rufus, Aud. Orn. Biog., vol. iv. p. 555. 
Male, 3 t 7 2, wing, 
Vol. IY. 
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