816 MIGRATION OF THE HUMMING BIRD. 
SO. TROCHILUS COLUMBRIS , LINNAEUS. 
NORTHERN HUMMING BIRD. 
“ The migration of birds,” say the authors of The 
Northern Zoology , “ has in all ages been a matter of 
pleasing speculation to the natural philosopher ; hut in 
no instance does it appear more wonderful than when 
we contemplate it as forming part of the economy of the 
humming birds. The vast extent of space traversed 
by some of the winged tribes in their n ay from their 
winter retreats to their breeding places, gives us great 
ideas of their unwearied strength of wing and rapidity 
of flight; but how is our admiration of the ways of 
Providence increased, when we find that one of the 
least of its class, clothed in the most delicate and 
brilliant plumage, and apparently more fitted to flutter 
about in a conservatory, than to brave the fury of the 
blast, should yield to few birds in the extent of its 
migrations ! The ruby-throated humming bird, which 
winters to the southward of the United States, ranges, 
in summer, to the fifty-seventh parallel, and, perhaps, 
even still farther north.* We obtained specimens on 
the plains of the Saskatchewan, and Mr Drummond 
found one of their nests near the sources of the EMt 
River. This nest is composed principally of the down 
of an anemone, bound together with a few stalks of 
moss and bits of lichen, and has an internal diameter 
of one inch. The eggs, two in number, of a reddish 
white colour, and obtuse at both ends, are half an inch 
long, and four lines and a quarter in transverse diameter.” 
* Kotzebue informs us, that the Trochilus rufus is found in 
summer as high as the sixty-first parallel, on the Pacific coast. The 
climate, however, is considerably milder to the west of the Rocky 
Mountains than to the eastward. 
