52 
The Male Ruby-Thro at. 
tion to him, not as a reprobate, but as 
a mystery. To that end I return to 
the story of my own observations. 
In last month’s article I set forth 
somewhat in detail (if the adverb seem 
inappropriate, as I fear it will, I can 
only commend it to the reader’s mercy) 
the closeness of our watch upon the 
nest there described. For more than 
a month it was under the eye of one or 
other of two men almost from morn¬ 
ing to night. We did not once de¬ 
tect the presence of the father, and 
yet I shall never feel absolutely sure 
that he did not one day pay us a visit. 
I mention the circumstance for what it 
may be worth, and because, whatever 
its import, it was at least a lively spec¬ 
tacle. It occurred upon this wise: On 
the 19th of July, the day when the 
first of the young birds bade good-by 
to its cradle, I had gone into the house, 
leaving my fellow-observer in the or¬ 
chard, with a charge to call me if any¬ 
thing noteworthy should happen. I 
was hardly seated before he whistled 
loudly, and I hastened out again. An¬ 
other hummer had been there, he said, 
and the mother had been chasing him 
(or her) about in a frantic manner; 
and even while we were talking, the 
scene was reenacted. The stranger 
had returned, and the two birds were 
shooting hither and thither through 
the trees, the widow squeaking and 
spreading her tail at a prodigious rate. 
The new-comer did not alight (it 
could n’t), and there was no determin¬ 
ing its sex. It may have been the 
recreant husband and father, unable 
longer to deny himself a look at his 
bairns, — who knows ? Or it may have 
been some bachelor or widower who had 
come a-wooing. One thing is certain, 
— husband, lover, or inquisitive stran¬ 
ger, he had no encouragement to come 
again. 
As if to heighten the dramatic in¬ 
terest of our studies (I come now to 
the promised mystery), we had already 
had the singular good fortune to find a 
[July, 
male humming-bird who seemed to be 
stationed permanently in a tall ash- 
tree, standing by itself in a recent 
clearing, at a distance of a mile or 
more from our widow’s orchard. Fay 
after day, for at least a fortnight (from 
the 2d to the 15th of July), he re¬ 
mained there. One or both of us went 
almost daily to call upon him, and, as 
far as we could make out, he seldom 
absented himself from his post for five 
minutes together! What was he do¬ 
ing? At first, in spite of his sex, it 
was hard not to believe that his nest 
was in the tree; and to satisfy himself, 
my companion “shinned” it, schoolboy 
fashion, — a frightful piece of work, 
which put me out of breath even to 
look at it, — while I surveyed the 
branches from all sides through an 
opera-glass. All was without avail. 
Nothing was to be seen, and it was 
as good as certain, the branches being 
well separated and easily overlooked, 
that there was nothing there. 
Four days later I set out alone, to 
try my luck with the riddle. As I 
entered the clearing, the hummer was 
seen at his post, and my suspicions 
fastened upon a small wild apple-tree, 
perhaps twenty rods distant. I went 
to examine it, and presently the bird 
followed me. He perched in its top, 
but seemed not to be jealous of my 
proximity, and soon returned to his 
customary position; but when I came 
back to the apple-tree, after a visit to 
a clump of oaks at the top of the hill, 
he again came over. I could find no 
sio-n of a nest, however, nor did the 
female show herself, as she pretty con¬ 
fidently might have been expected to 
do had her nest been near by. After 
this I went to the edge of the wood, 
where 1 could keep an eye upon both 
trees without being myself conspicuous. 
The sentinel spent most of his time 
in the ash, visiting the apple-tree but 
once, and then for a few minutes only. 
I stayed an hour and a half, and came 
away no wiser than before. The nest, 
