_whizzed the beautiful gem in headlong flight, while the lady 
bird picked herself up and smoothed her ruffled feelings 
and feathers until she saw she had an audience, and then 
she shot straight up into the air out of sight. 
His temper shows no relation to his size, for, not only in 
wooing is one of these pygmies furious. His tantrums 
suggest that his emotions have been compressed in many 
ways, for he explodes at the least annoyance. No czar ever 
held his possessions with more stubbornness than does a 
hummingbird when once he has chosen his feeding quarters. | 
He appears always to be attracted by scarlet colors, a red 
eiderdown jacket has brought him within a foot of an 
-_ observer’s face, as he flew by a hammock where she lounged, 
and he is especially fond of the flowering currant and the a 
fireweed. If another bird of any kind or size dares to invade 
his territory it is immediately attacked with the fury of a 
-eyclone. Even large hawks have yielded to the attacks of 
this tempestuous termagent and have left his location, 
urged to be in a rush by the darts and thrusts of this mite 
of a hummer. 
Hummingbirds are soliatiee neighbors, and will 
accept the right kind of an invitation to come to shrubs and 
even porches, to feed or to build a nest. A scarlet geranium 
with a sunny exposure has attracted many calls in one 
entrance way, while the owner sat reading or working there. 
The birds circled about the plant poking their tube-like — 
tongues into blooms, paying no attention to anything except — 
the satisfaction of their own wants. 
Another lady attracted them by filling her window 
boxes with bright nasturtiums. Daily they poised on 
invisible wings in front of each cup of nectar to take the 
drops that cheered. They were finding solid as well as 
liquid refreshment, for an examination of many blossoms, 
before the regular meals, showed that the tubes often 
contained plant lice or other insects that also love sweets. 
This hostess enjoyed her callers so much that she regularly 
174 
