Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/612

592 petulant squeaking, as the possessors hurled themselves first at one intruder and then at another, driving them back and forth, as though playing battledore and shuttlecock with them. Twice I saw the male who defended the western tree lock bills with a visiting female and fall almost to the ground in combat; and in several instances I noticed a hotly pursued visitor escape by suddenly doubling, seizing a twig, and then hanging head downward by one foot behind a cluster of leaves. As a rule, the rubythroat, when drinking, makes a perfectly audible humming, the male making a sound somewhat louder and deeper than that produced by the female. It is, however, entirely within the range of their accomplishments to hover silently, and it is not unusual for a visitor to drink silently when successful in reaching a tree unseen. While I never have seen a male rubythroat drink from the drills while perching, I have noticed the female doing so scores of times. In fact, the female at the eastern tree perched nearly a third of the time, sometimes on a twig from which she could lean over and sip the sap, sometimes on the bark itself in a position almost identical with that taken by the woodpecker.

One morning while I was watching the new orchard, a shower came up from behind the western spurs of Chocorua. Thunder grumbled, the sky grew dark, and the wind swished viciously through the slender birches. I wondered what the birds and insects would do when the rain came. From where I sat, I could see dozens of living things, most of which were more or less dependent upon the sapsuckers' orchard. There were four of the woodpeckers themselves, three humming birds, a hermit, thrush, two juncos, three chickadees, a least flycatcher; five or six butterflies representing three species; hornets and numbers of flies, ants, and other small insects. As the rain began, the insects, with the exception of the hornets, vanished at once. All the birds, save one of the woodpeckers and the rubythroats, flew out of sight. The remaining sapsucker was a young bird, who looked stupid, and who received the rain by ducking his head and vibrating his tail and wings as a bird does when he bathes in a pool. But the rubythroats amazed me by their conduct. They sought leafless twigs with only the weeping sky above them, and there, apparently with joy, extended their wings to the fullest extent, spread their tails until every feather showed its point, and then received the pelting, pounding rain as though it were holy water. They became so wet that I doubted whether they could fly. Buzz-z-z! the vigilant male darted at an intruding female and drove her out of sight, only to see her return again and again in the thickest of the white drops in vain attempts to overcome his watchfulness. It was evident that no ordinary shower could interfere with the whirring wings of a humming bird.