36v Xlbe TClavsfoe 
OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE WISCONSIN, ILLINOIS AND MICHIGAN AUDUBON SOCIETIES 
Dne Year 25 Cents 
Single Copy 5 Cents 
Published by the Wisconsin Audubon Society at Madison, Wisconsin 
Entered as second class matter August 23, 1909, at Mad!son, Wis., under the act of Congress of March 3, 1879 
7 OL,. XII. 
JUNK, 1911 
NO. 12 
HUMMING BIRDS IN CALIFORNIA 
By Rebecca H. Kauffman, 
Hood River, Oregon. 
Some friends of mine who had gone 
rom Illinois to California to make their 
iome had told me that the humming 
>irds were more numerous there, and of 
nore varieties, and likewise more tame, 
t did not • take long for me to verify 
: his during my first visit to the Golden 
State in the autumn of 1909. I had 
topped to wait under the shade of a 
pergola in a small park near the Hotel 
| Ireen in Pasadena, one October day. A 
lense covering of vines concealed me 
tartly,—the brilliant-blooming bongai- 
lcillea, the solannm, and the plumba- 
j ;o, and all bearing the sweet food 
ivhicli is the delight of the humming 
pud. During the hour I spent there I 
j aw more of these little creatures than 
should see in weeks at home in Illi- 
i 
| ois, even though there I had set a great 
ed-and-yellow honeysuckle to attract 
3 hem. At home, by dint of keeping 
! ery still, and listening very closely, I 
ould hear the whirr of their restless 
j zings, and sometimes, though rarely, a 
faint, delighted tachi-ik of the voice,— 
1 linking even then it was but my im- 
But, as I had been told, in 
ma, one is sure that it is the 
umming bird’s voice, it is so clearly 
istinct. 
It is a long time since I read in one 
f the books of John Burroughs of his 
1 gming. 
Palifori 
desire to see the nest of a humming 
bird. He tells how he had traced the 
bird to a certain tree, and how he lay 
quietly under the tree for three or four 
hours awaiting the return of the bird, 
and that the nest which the little thing 1 
alighted upon, appeared like a small 
wart on the limb. Ever since I have 
hoped to find a nest, and have patiently 
watched, too. But our humming birds 
at our home in Illinois, after helping 
themselves to the meal I had provided 
for them, invariably flew over the trees 
on the river bank and disappeared 
across the water in an island beyond, 
whither I could not follow them. 
In June of the last year Professor 
A. G. Newcome, who is at the head of 
the English department of Leland Stan¬ 
ford Junior University, which is lo¬ 
cated at Palo Aho, California, while 
visiting at cur home on Rock River, 
told me they had two humming birds’ 
nests that spring at their home in Palo 
Alto. Think of it! Two nests of these 
tiny ceatures! and where is there a 
nature lover who would not be satisfied 
with one! One pair of birds had built 
in a tree near the house at the rear—an 
almond tree, I think. The other—and 
can you realize -the bliss of it, you who 
would be happy to see one for but a 
few minutes!—built on a stout, laterally 
