Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/611

Rh the chances are that it is a new settlement. In July, 1893, twenty gray birches within an area a hundred feet square had been scarred by the woodpeckers. About half of these were dead, and out of the entire number only four trees were newly drilled and sap-yielding. In many ways this orchard proved to be the most interesting I have watched. The family of sapsuckers using it was not pugnacious, and in consequence other birds visited it much more freely than is generally the case. Downy woodpeckers occasionally sipped at its fountains; black-and-white creeping warblers regularly, though warily, visited its insect hoards, and during the autumn migration of 1892 a pair of yellow-breasted flycatchers spent many days in constant attendance upon its trees, around which countless insects fluttered or hummed.

The four sap-yielding trees at this orchard appeared in July, 1893, to have been appropriated, subject to the prior claims of the woodpeckers, by three humming birds, a female and two males. No one of these birds permitted either of the others or any one of numerous filibustering humming birds to drink at its preempted wells. If trespass was attempted, the most furious assault was made upon the intruder, and the possessor was always victorious. Thus, if the female at the eastern tree attempted to approach the western tree, the male on guard there drove her away; while if he entered upon her dominions, he was swiftly repulsed. The details of these meetings were sometimes very extraordinary. In one instance a visiting female persisted for nearly ten minutes in trying to secure a foothold at the western tree. The savage little male met her with his usual impetuous charge, but she dodged him, and began a strange sinuous flight among the branches, back and forth, up and down, round and through, over and under, until the air seemed filled with pursued and pursuer, dizzily maintaining their mysterious flight within from five to a hundred feet of the disputed drinking place. Much of the time the female seemed to be facing the male and flying backward slowly with head erect; then there would come a swift buzz-z-z, and a clear space between the trees would be traversed by both birds with the speed of light, a slower flight being resumed the moment foliage was entered. If the male paused in his pursuit, the female drew near again to the coveted drills, and so forced him to renew the chase. Sometimes they moved so slowly that they seemed like bubbles or airy seed vessels wafted by the breeze, and sometimes they flew in short, ever-changing lines, so that the eye wearied of watching them. At last the female gave up the struggle and vanished above the neighboring tree tops.

Frequently the visitors did not come singly, but arrived two or three together, and made combined attacks upon the drills. Then the air would be filled with violent humming and the most