Green, Greenish Gray, Olive, and Yellowish Olive Birds 
little brains can picture? Apparently it takes only the wish to be 
in a place to transport one of these little fairies either from the 
honeysuckle trellis to the canna bed or from Yucatan to the Hud- 
son. It is easy to see how to will and to fly are allied in the 
minds of the humming-birds, as they are in the Latin tongue. 
One minute poised in midair, apparently motionless before a 
flower while draining the nectar from its deep cup — though the 
humming of its wings tells that it is suspended there by no magic 
— the next instant it has flashed out of sight as if a fairy’s wand 
had made it suddenly invisible. Without seeing the hummer, it 
might be, and often is, mistaken for a bee improving the “shin- 
ing hour.” 
At evening one often hears of a “ humming-bird ” going the 
rounds of the garden, but at this hour it is usually the sphinx- 
moth hovering above the flower-beds — the one other creature be- 
sides the bee for which the bird is ever mistaken. The postures 
and preferences of this beautiful large moth make the mistake a 
very natural one. 
The ruby-throat is strangely fearless and unabashed. It will 
dart among the vines on the veranda while the entire household 
are assembled there, and add its hum to that of the conversation 
in a most delightfully neighborly way. Once a glistening little 
sprite, quite undaunted by the size of an audience that sat almost 
breathless enjoying his beauty, thrust his bill into one calyx after 
another on a long sprig of honeysuckle held in the hand. 
And yet, with all its friendliness — or is it simply fearlessness ? 
— the bird is a desperate duellist, and will longe his deadly blade 
into the jewelled breast of an enemy at the slightest provocation 
and quicker than thought. All the heat of his glowing throat 
seems to be transferred to his head while the fight continues, 
sometimes even to the death — a cruel, but marvellously beautiful 
sight as the glistening birds dart and tumble about beyond the 
range of peace-makers. 
High up in a tree, preferably one whose knots and lichen- 
covered excrescences are calculated to help conceal the nest that 
so cleverly imitates them, the mother humming-bird saddles her 
exquisite cradle to a horizontal limb. She lines it with plant- 
down, fluffy bits from cat-tails, and the fronds of fern, felting 
the material into a circle that an elm-leaf amply roofs over. Out- 
side, lichens or bits of bark blend the nest so harmoniously with 
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