Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 5.djvu/300

286 to follow the movement, loses sight of it, until it again returns to the flower which at first attracted its attention."

The ruby-throated, or northern, humming-bird (Trochilus coluhris, Linnæus) is so called, says Wood, "on account of the glowing, metallic feathers that blaze with ruby lustre upon its throat, and gleam in the sunshine like plumes of living fire. The general color of its upper surface and the two central tail-feathers is light, shining green, glazed with gold. The under parts of the body are grayish-white intermingled with green; and the throat is of the most gorgeous ruby carmine" tint, which changes, with the change of light, to a fiery crimson, to a burning orange, or to the deepest velvety black. The wings and eight tail-feathers are purplish-brown. The throat of the female is white.

The ruby-throats arrive in Louisiana and Florida in the first part of March, and, gradually proceeding north as the weather grows warm, arrive in Pennsylvania in the latter part of April, and in New York and Canada in May. They generally build their nests two or three weeks after their arrival. They usually place them a few feet from the ground, on an almost level branch of some tree, as the white-oak or pear tree, and extend the bottom of the nest round the limb so as to inclose it and appear as a mere mossy knot, or natural enlargement. Audubon says: "The nest of this humming-bird is of the most delicate nature, the external parts being formed of a light-gray lichen, found on the branches of trees or on decayed fence-rails, and so neatly arranged round the whole nest, as well as to some distance from the spot where it is attached, as to seem part of the branch or stem itself. These little pieces of lichen are glued together by the saliva of the bird. The next coating consists of cottony substances, and the innermost, of silky fibres, obtained from various plants, all extremely delicate and soft. On this comfortable bed, as if in contradiction to the axiom that the smaller the species the greater the number of eggs, the female lays only two, which are pure white, and almost oval. Ten days are required for their hatching; and the birds raise two broods in a season. In one week the young are ready to fly; but are fed by the parents for nearly another week. They receive their food directly from the bill of their parents, who disgorge it in the manner of canaries and pigeons." They probably join the young of other broods, and migrate without the old ones. They no not receive their full brilliancy till the next spring. When caught in a gauze net they easily die, or simulate death.

The ruby-throat has sometimes been tamed. Mr. Webber, in his "Wild Scenes and Song Birds," says, after several unsuccessful attempts, at last "I succeeded in securing an uninjured captive, which, to my inexpressible delight, proved to be one of the ruby-throated species, the most splendid and diminutive, that comes north of Florida. It immediately suggested itself to me that a mixture of two parts of loaf-sugar, with one of fine honey, in ten of water, would make about