Hummingbird

“ When the Hummingbird says ‘Go!’ other birds stand not upon the order of their going, but go at once; while the little warrior sometimes accelerates their flight, for his sharp beak is a weapon not to be despised. Even the Kingbird goes when the war-like Hummer comes; the English Sparrow flees in terror; only the Woodpeckers stand their ground.” [103]
Hummingbirds are not only fearless and pugnacious, but they are very inquisitive. ”

“ Put a whip-poor-will and a ruby-throated hummer side by side and they certainly do look very little alike—the big whip-poor-will, with its mottled plumage and its short, gaping beak, and the tiny hummingbird with its burnished feathers and its long needle of a bill. ”

“ The hummingbird is the most pugnacious bird in America. If he were as big as a crow, he would be a terror to man and beast, for he is afraid of nothing. This spirited mite of a bird will even attack an eagle, who is big enough to eat him at a mouthful. He beats him too, for he comes down on top of his head, where the big, clumsy fellow cannot get at him. There he pecks and pulls out feathers till the eagle is glad to get out of his clutches. ”

“ Perhaps they attribute the same intelligence to us that some of us do to them!
While the blackbirds were making such a time over our heads, I watched the hummingbirds buzzing around the petunias and pink roses under the ranch-house windows, and darting off to flutter about the tubular flowers of the tobacco-tree by the well. One day the small boy of the family climbed up to the hummingbird's nest in the oak "to see if there were eggs yet," and the frightened brood popped out before his eyes. ”

“ When the late tulips and narcissi are blooming in the garden, and you hear a tense humming near them, varied by an occasional squeak, you know, Without looking, that the Hummingbirds have come. All through late May they dart here and there, now among the flowers, and then disappearing high up in the trees, searching for both honey and aphides with their proboscis-like tongues, while their movements exceed in dash and rapidity even the Swallows and Swifts. They seem merely to will to be in a certain spot, and they are there without efiort. ”

“ A widely seen hummingbird east of the Great Plains, the ruby-throats are exquisite bits, capable of incredible flight, moving in any direction on wings vibrating faster than sight or able to hover motionless while spectators are breathless. ”

“ It seemed as if she would be worn out before night, but her eyes were bright and she looked vigorous enough to build half a dozen houses.
"There's odds in folks," our great-grandmothers used to say; and there certainly is in bird folks; even in the ways of the same one at different times. Now this hummingbird was content to build right in front of my eyes, and the hummer down at the little lover's tree, with her first nest, was so indifferent to Billy and me that I took no pains to keep at a distance or disguise the fact that I was watching her. ”

“ All hummingbirds fly very swiftly. You know how they go,—not straight like most birds, but darting one way and another so quickly they can hardly be seen. As they fly, their wings move so fast they look almost like little clouds, and we hear the low noise we call humming.
Hummingbirds eat nothing but tiny insects, and the honey of flowers, which they suck up through their long bill. They take their food without alighting, for they can hold themselves [144] still before a flower, with the wonderful wings, as long as they choose. ”

“ While thus engaged they usually perch on a bare or dead twig in an exposed position. Truly fortunate is he who is afforded the opportunity of watching a hummingbird at this time. In this position various and graceful attitudes are assumed and the colors of the plumage are most beautifully exhibited. Mr. Audubon tells us that when perching the hummingbirds “move sidewise in prettily measured steps, frequently opening and closing their wings, pluming, stroking and arranging the whole of their apparel with neatness and activity.” ”

“ Any bird seen doing this should be carefully watched. It has long been known that the domestic pigeon does this, and the same has been observed a number of times of the ruby-throated hummingbird. A California lady has taken some remarkable photographs of the Anna’s hummingbird in the act, showing just how it is done. ”

“ Black-chinned Hummingbird.—The first specimen met with was a female which, with a nest and two eggs, was taken at Tucson on April 23. The species was also found breeding among the Santa Rita Mountains, as well as near Camp Lowell. At all these points it was decidedly the most abundant of the Hummingbirds.
Six of the seven examples collected are females, and Mr. Stephens remarks on the apparent absence of the males during the breeding season. ”

“ The bird whose nest we see there is called the Ruby-throated Hummingbird, because he has a patch of glittering ruby-red feathers under his chin, at the top of his buttoned-up vest that hardly shows any while shirt-front. ”

“ The well known hummingbird manner of buzzing up to a flower and dipping in the beak while on the wing is a fixt rule with all the adults; but when first learning to secure food for themselves the young birds find this rather too much for them. ”

“ A score of hummingbirds, of as many distinct species, are less to the student of habits than one little brown-plurnaged bird haunting his garden or the rush-bed of a neighbouring stream; and, doubtless, for a reason similar to that which makes a lovely human face uninformed by intellect seem less permanently attractive than many a homelier countenance. He grows tired of seeing the feathered fairies perpetually weaving their aerial ballet-dance about the flowers, and finds it a relief to watch the little finch or wren or flycatcher of shy temper and obscure protective colouring. ”

“ Hummingbirds are such dainty things. Once when this one alighted on the rim of her nest she whirred herself right down inside. Soon she began to act so strangely for a brooding bird that, when she flew, I went to feel in the nest. ”

“ The most dainty structure built, in this country, by the bill and feet of birds, is the nest made by the Ruby-throated Hummingbird. When completed it is scarcely larger than an English walnut, and is saddled on a small horizontal limb of a tree, often many feet from the ground. It is composed almost entirely of soft plant fibres, fragments of spiders' webs sometimes being used to hold them in shape. The outer sides are thickly studded with bits of lichen, and practised, indeed, is the eye of the man or woman that can distinguish it from a knot on a limb. ”

“ It takes a hummingbird several days of hard work to make a nest, because she can bring only a little at a time. She does it alone too; her mate has not been seen to help her at all.
I think the male ruby-throat does not help in the nest-building because the little mother will not let him. She knows just how the cradle is to be made, and she doesn't want him to bother her. She likes to have her nest to herself just as she likes to have her honeysuckle to herself. ”

“ Goldfinch—51⁄4 inches
62 THE RUBY-THROATED HUMMINGBIRD
The only species of Hummingbird that we know in the Northeast is the Ruby-throat. This little whirring jewel comes to us from the South in very early May and departs by the first of October. It is interesting to learn that there are at least five hundred known species of Hummingbirds in the New World. They are found only in North and South America, the greatest numbers being in South America in Ecuador and Columbia, where Dr. Frank M. Chapman writes that they inhabit the Andean regions. ”

“ This ornament,—a real jewel,—with the lovely shining green of the bird’s back, makes him an object of great beauty.
Every one knows him, or would do so only that some people confuse him with bright-colored, long-tongued hummingbird moths that are seen hovering, mostly in the early evening, over the flowers of the garden.
The ruby-throat spends the winter south of the United States. He arrives in Florida in March, but does not reach New England till near the middle of May.
[52] Many persons seem to imagine that the hummer lives on the wing. They have never seen one sitting still, they say. ”

“ There are over one hundred species of these birds. They are graceful in all their motions and very active in their habits. Like the hummingbirds, they flit from flower to flower, feeding on the minute insects which are attracted by the nectar, and probably to some extent on the honey, for their tongues are fitted for gathering it. However, their habit while gathering food is unlike that of the hummingbird, for they do not hover over the flower, but perch upon it while feeding. The plumage of the males nearly always differs very strongly from that of the females. ”

“ The swallows and swifts are almost constantly on the wing, dexterously catching any insects that come in their way. They are day birds and at night are replaced by the nighthawks that feed upon the night flying insects. Next are the flycatchers that dart “from ambush at passing prey, and with a suggestive click of the bill, return to their post.” The beautiful little hummingbird, ever active on the wing, quickly sees and picks from leaf or flower insects that would escape the attention of other birds. ”

“ The flowers supply insects and honey to the hummingbirds, and they, in turn, as they fly from blossom to blossom probing the tubes with the long slender bills that have gradually come to fit the shape of the tubes, brush off the pollen of one blossom to carry it on to the next, so enabling the plants to perfect their flowers as they could not without help. It is said that, in proportion to their numbers, hummingbirds assist as much as insects in the work of cross-fertilization. ”

“ They will frequently fly as high as one hundred feet immediately above the vicinity of the nest, repeating the performance several times before alighting on some perch. The female is a faithful mother and will often remain on her nest until an intruder is within a few inches. The nest, though sometimes placed on large branches, is usually built but a few feet from the ground in low bushes or boughs that overhang water.
In their migrations southward the Broad-tailed Hummingbird is frequently found in company with the rufous-backed species, for which it shows an especial animosity. ”

“ Thus the idea of concealment of the location of its nest does not enter into its thoughts or instincts. Those nests which I have found have been so situated that a clear outlook could be obtained in at least two directions. The hummingbird while incubating seems to require but little time for procuring food, as I have seldom found them absent from their eggs, and of course the female is not relieved by her mate, as is the case with so many birds, nor is she fed by him as are the female finches. ”

“ But most birds hatched in nests in trees and bushes, like robins and bluebirds, are very different. When they come out of their shells they are naked, have their eyes shut, and look as if they were nearly all mouth. A young hummingbird looks about as big as a honey bee, and a robin baby not much bigger than the eggshell he came out of.
They lie flat down in the nest, seeming to be asleep most of the time. All they want is to be warm and to be fed. ”

“ If we desire to study the Broad-tailed Hummingbird in the regions that it frequents, we must journey to the mountainous district of Western North America. Here it may be found in large numbers, for it is the most common of all the species that frequent the mountains. It seeks its food of insects and honey from the flowers of a prolific flora extending from Wyoming and Idaho southward through Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas and over the table lands of Mexico into Guatemala. ”

“ If only they let me, I'll go right into the dense forest where you can't find your way. And where the honey-sipping hummingbird rocks himself on the end of the thinnest branch, I will flower out as a champa. ”

“ If we take a peep into the nest when the young hummingbirds are only partly grown, we shall see that their bills are broad and stubby, like those of the swifts. Their home, however, is indeed a different affair,—a pinch of 157 plant-down tied together with cobwebs and stuccoed with lichens, like those which are growing all about upon the tree. If we do not watch the female when she settles to her young or eggs we may search in vain for this tiniest of homes, so closely does it resemble an ordinary knot on a branch. ”

“ Although the nectar of flowers forms a large part of their food, it has been shown that insects also form no inconsiderable portion.
The high degree of intelligence possessed by the hummingbirds is shown in the construction of their nests. Some of the species make the nests “of such form or material as will serve to imitate natural excrescences of a branch, such as a knot or a pine cone.” Other species make a hammock-like nest that they suspend from cliffs by attaching spiders’ webs. ”

“ They generally build in the birch or alder, selecting the fork of a branch high up.
All hummingbirds, as far as I know, lay only two eggs; the young are so tightly packed into the nest, and fit so exactly, that if once taken out it is impossible to replace them. Several springs succeeding my first discovery that these hummingbirds were regular migrants to boreal regions, I watched their arrival. We were quartered for the winter close to the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains. ”

“ First, only two eggs are laid and presumably only one brood raised each year by the Costa Hummingbird; second, the period during which the young are confined to the nest is from 50 percent to 100 percent greater than in the case of the smaller passerine species; third, the young are entirely dependent upon the female parent for sustenance. That the hummingbirds are able to maintain their numbers under these handicaps can but increase our admiration for these tiny but highly specialized and intelligent creatures. ”