HUMMINGBIRDS 
273 
Nesting. In inaccessible clefts and crannies high on the face of mountain cliffs. 
Distribution. Western North America south to Lower California. In Canada, known 
to occur only in the southern Okanagan Valley of British Columbia. 
Too rare and local in Canada to be of much general interest, but no 
Canadian ornithologist can visit their haunts without enthusing over them. 
Their wonderful and spectacular speed of wing and their unattainable 
communal nesting strongholds, around which they turn and wheel and 
swoop, so high as to make it uncertain even with field-glasses whether they 
are birds high up or flies lower down, pique the bird-lover who secs them 
day by day at their most private affairs and yet never gets familiar with 
them. 
SUBORDER— TROCHILI. HUMMINGBIRDS 
These tiny birds, with brilliant, flower-like coloration, insect-like 
flight, and wonderfully varied form, are a typically American order. In 
a way, they occupy much the same position in the New World as the Sun 
Birds do in the Old World, but the similarity between the two is super- 
ficial and not one of relationship. Many species are highly specialized and 
exhibit some of the strangest forms in the bird world, including crests, 
ruffs, fans, and muffs, exaggerated tails, long plumes, and enormous sword- 
like and fine awl-shaped bills, but their most striking feature is the brilliant 
metallic colorations that gleam on various parts of the body. They feed 
largely upon the nectar of flowers. The tongue is very long and protrusive 
as in the woodpeckers, but with its sides curled over towards the middle 
to form a double tube frayed into a brush-like tip that makes a most 
efficient organ for sucking liquids. Numbers of small insects, however, are 
taken with the nectar and, judging from feeding experiments on captives, 
seem to be necessary to the bird’s welfare. They are usually minute forms 
taken from the flowers from which the nectar is obtained. 
Hummingbirds as a group are tropical and subtropical species and 
increase greatly in number to the south, though a few species range well to 
the north. 
FAMILY— TROCHILIDAE. HUMMINGBIRDS 
There is only one family of hummingbirds in Canada, represented in 
the east by a single species, in the far west by three. 
Very minute birds, 3-75 inches or less in length, with long, spine- 
shaped bill (Figure 389), and brilliant metallic colours. 
428. Ruby-throated Hummingbird, l’oiseau-mouche a gorge rubis. Archilo- 
chus colubris. L, 3-74. Plate XXX\ I A. Male: rich, metallic, bronzy green above and 
on flanks. Below, dull white with throat patch of scintillating 
ruby-red. Female and juvenile alike, green above, with white 
throat slightly streaked with greyish or showing a few sparse 
spots of brilliant ruby. 
Distinctions. To be mistaken in western Alberta only for 
the Rufous Hummingbird, Plate XXXVI B. The male with 
its brilliant green, instead of unmetallic brick-red, back is easily 
identified. Females and juveniles of the two species are more 
alike, but the green back in this species is always bright and 
complete; that of the Rufous is duller and has always considerable rufous suffusion on the 
flanks, below, and especially on the base of the tail. 
Field Marks. Small size and buzzing, insect-like flight. Except in western Alberta, 
the only hummingbird to be expected east and in the Prairie Provinces. The green back 
and gleaming ruby throat in the male, and the green back of rufous suffusion in other 
plumages. 
Figure 389 
Hummingbird ; 
natural size. 
