" Ruby Throated Hu mming-b ird, (: IrochUus 
colubris). May 80th, this afternoon, as a friend 
and I were tramping through the woods we saw 
a hummer. It soon alighted on a limb of a spruce 
tree, and began to work at its nest which was on 
the end of the limb, and about fifteen feet from 
the ground. The nest was not quite completed, 
and the bird took no notice of us. I obtained the 
eggs on June 2d. June 2d, I found another Ruby 
throat’s nest in the same woods about 200 yards 
away. It was on the end of a large spruce limb, 
and about thirty-five feet high. In trying to get 
the eggs they broke. Twenty yards off was an old 
nest which I suppose had been used the year be- 
fore. June 5th, saw a boy find a nest on a spruce 
limb overhanging a small run, but he broke the 
eggs in trying to get them. July 19th, took a set 
of two eggs from a spruce limb about five feet 
high. The tree was on the side of a hill along 
Wissahickon Creek and about ten feet from it. 
J 
O.&O. XI. Jan. 1886. p.^ 
The Roby-thkoated Humming Bird. I took the nest 
of the Ruby-throated Hummingbird June 17. There were 
two eggs slightly incubated. They were larger than I ex- 
pected. It seems to me they are large for the size of the 
bird. The nest was on an elm tree about thirty-five feet 
from the ground. On July 9th, I found another nest about 
six rods from this— probably of the same bird’s. When 
found it had one bird just hatched, and one egg which 
hatched the next day. The young were almost black and 
• 'T -1— 1 4 \ O dtolrv tsf rl own iYn Choir hacks 
Breeding Habits of the Ruby-throat 
at Ballston, New York. 
This little gem in feathers arrives from its 
winter home in Guatemala and Mexico 
about the ioth of May, the males usually in 
advance of the females. After devoting 
about two weeks to rollicking and courtship 
they proceed to find a suitable location for 
their nest. In this different members dif- 
fer very much, some choosing high, open 
woodlands, others dense thickets, but by far 
the greater number resort to the orchard 
near the abode of man, and there, on a hori- 
zontal limb at no great distance from the 
ground, they commence the construction of 
one of the handsomest of nests, composed 
of vegetable down and covered with lichens 
which are held in place by numerous cob- 
webs. This piece of bird architecture is 
built by both birds and takes from five to six 
days to complete. The female then deposits 
her complement of eggs and incubation be- 
gins at once and is the work of the female, 
the male standing guard, or securing food 
for his mate. At the end of 8 or 9 days 
the young are hatched, and then for the 
next two weeks the parent birds are kept 
busy from daylight until dark finding food 
for these hungry mites. At the end of this 
time they are large enough to leave the nest, 
and in a few days more are left to shift for 
themselves. About the first of September 
they are off for the south, the old ones a few 
days in advance of the young. 
S ■ Ingersoll. 
Dec. 1887.J 
AND OC 
- - — ' I..i rf 3e to whs 
and over her baby birds and expired, and 
. . rlciorl horlv W 818 to DC 
to what I 
auu uyui ~ — j - , jt liiva-i iably 
months afterwards her dead body was to bc^ , g thig . 
seen in this position, a silent yet e oquen ie L.^ ( / le ji rst 
proach to the eruelty and rapacity of the great ^ bird Jay 
destroyer man. gs Tuesday 
The next spring, 1886, the male appeared x flrgt ob _ 
with another mate, and aftei hoveling a <m .pmo- nests 
the old tree for a few days they left it and ^ devoted 
went to a wooded slope a half mile away , an _ j two : 
in a large white oak built a nest am naiei ^ Ii u I > y- 
their young. Probably evidences of the foulf Night _ 
murder committed a year before still remained! ^ ^ 
at the old nest and decided them against using ^ confo| . m j 
it. , . , 11 this fact 
Last spring, 1887, they appeared about March- ^ witfc 
1st and at once set about repairing the o d^ Non .j s 
home in the sycamore, and for two weeks, dur-^^ been 
ing which time I was making professional trips and 
up the river in my boat every two or tbre c' edU)le that 
days, they came under my observation, and^ en( . jrely 
with 110 thought of doing so at first, the desiier wag with 
began to develop and grow upon me to scale ^ 
that tree and secure the contents ot that nest, geagon 
until finally on March 12th I gathered together ^ made | 
a coil of rope, a ball of string, my climbers and f know , ng 
an axe. I was accompanied by a ueni <u> .statements j 
we repaired to the tree and at once set about 
devising the best means to get up to the fmi^i g informed 
about thirty feet high. We finally decided to aUow 
cut a hackberry sapling that grew near by and otherwige 
by trimming up about twenty-five feet of it we 
succeeded, after much tugging and lifting^ in ^ collee- 
elevating it against the side of the tree. 1 ut-^ haye Qp _ 
ting on my climbers, I went up this and _ 
the top was enabled by the aid oi t ie sap-C^ and 
sprouts that here sprung out to get over into, ^ , f th( , y 
the forks of the tree. After resting a tew min- 
utes I now went on rapidly towards the nest dedui . tion 
until I. had come within ten feet o : it. 1011 va j occurs 
made the startling discovery that the limb on ^ gecQnd 
which the nest was placed narrowed down tor a third 
the thickness of my leg and was hollow and. 
full of Woodpecker holes on the under side. It g a meang 
two eggs, 
the vexed 
ute a set. 
will give 
r deserve, 
jie benefit 
itless one 
or, I will 
say i.nai uie nest may De completed and one 
egg laid when found and should he return on 
the following day and find the set complete, 
this only proves the first egg had been depos- 1 
ited one day prior to the finding. 
Q.& O. XII. Deo. 1887 p, ffk'/ff, 
0.& O.Vol. 18, May. 1898 p 79 
