(_Trochilus colubris_) Humming-bird family
(Illustration facing p. 171)
_Length_--3.5 to 3.75 inches. A trifle over half as long as
the English sparrow. The smallest bird we have.
_Male_--Bright metallic green above; wings and tail darkest,
with ruddy-purplish reflections and dusky-white tips on outer
tail-quills. Throat and breast brilliant metallic-red in one
light, orange flame in another, and dusky orange in another,
according as the light strikes the plumage. Sides greenish;
underneath lightest gray, with whitish border outlining the
brilliant breast. Bill long and needle-like.
_Female_--Without the brilliant feathers on throat; darker
gray beneath. Outer tail-quills are banded with black and
tipped with white.
_Range_--Eastern North America, from northern Canada to the
Gulf of Mexico in summer. Winters in Central America.
_Migrations_--May. October. Common summer resident.
This smallest, most exquisite and unabashed of our bird neighbors
cannot be mistaken, for it is the only one of its kin found east of
the plains and north of Florida, although about four hundred species,
native only to the New World, have been named by scientists. How does
it happen that this little tropical jewel alone flashes about our
Northern gardens? Does it never stir the spirit of adventure and
emulation in the glistening breasts of its stay-at-home cousins in the
tropics by tales of luxuriant tangles of honeysuckle and clematis on
our cottage porches; of deep-cupped trumpet-flowers climbing over the
walls of old-fashioned gardens, where larkspur, narcissus, roses, and
phlox, that crowd the box-edged beds, are more gay and honey-laden
than their little brains can picture? Apparently it takes only the
wish to be in a place to transport one of these little fairies either
from the honeysuckle trellis to the canna bed or from Yucatan to the
Hudson. It is easy to see how to will and to fly are allied in the
minds of the humming-birds, as they are in the Latin tongue. One
minute poised in midair, apparently motionless before a flower while
draining the nectar from its deep cup--though the humming of its wings
tells that it is suspended there by no magic--the next instant it has
flashed out of sight as if a fairy's wand had made it suddenly
invisible. Without seeing the hummer, it might be, and often is,
mistaken for a bee improving the "shining hour."
At evening one often hears of a "humming-bird" going the rounds of the
garden, but at this hour it is usually the sphinx-moth hovering above
the flower-beds--the one other creature besides the bee for which the
bird is ever mistaken. The postures and preferences of this beautiful
large moth make the mistake a very natural one.
The ruby-throat is strangely fearless and unabashed. It will dart
among the vines on the veranda while the entire household are
assembled there, and add its hum to that of the conversation in a most
delightfully neighborly way. Once a glistening little sprite, quite
undaunted by the size of an audience that sat almost breathless
enjoying his beauty, thrust his bill into one calyx after another on a
long sprig of honeysuckle held in the hand.
And yet, with all its friendliness--or is it simply fearlessness?--the
bird is a desperate duellist, and will longe his deadly blade into the
jewelled breast of an enemy at the slightest provocation and quicker
than thought. All the heat of his glowing throat seems to be
transferred to his head while the fight continues, sometimes even to
the death--a cruel, but marvellously beautiful sight as the glistening
birds dart and tumble about beyond the range of peace-makers.
High up in a tree, preferably one whose knots and lichen-covered
excrescences are calculated to help conceal the nest that so cleverly
imitates them, the mother humming-bird saddles her exquisite cradle to
a horizontal limb. She lines it with plant-down, fluffy bits from
cat-tails, and the fronds of fern, felting the material into a circle
that an elm-leaf amply roofs over. Outside, lichens or bits of bark
blend the nest so harmoniously with its surroundings that one may
look long and thoroughly before discovering it. Two infinitesimal,
white eggs tax the nest accommodation to its utmost.
In the mating season the female may be seen perching--a posture one
rarely catches her gay lover in--preening her dainty but sombre
feathers with ladylike nicety. The young birds do a great deal of
perching before they gain the marvellously rapid wing-motions of
maturity, but they are ready to fly within three weeks after they are
hatched. By the time the trumpet-vine is in bloom they dart and sip
and utter a shrill little squeak among the flowers, in company with
the old birds.
During the nest-building and incubation the male bird keeps so
aggressively on the defensive that he often betrays to a hitherto
unsuspecting intruder the location of his home. After the young birds
have to be fed he is most diligent in collecting food, that consists
not alone of the sweet juices of flowers, as is popularly supposed,
but also of aphides and plant-lice that his proboscis-like tongue
licks off the garden foliage literally like a streak of lightning.
Both parents feed the young by regurgitation--a process disgusting to
the human observer, whose stomach involuntarily revolts at the sight
so welcome to the tiny, squeaking, hungry birds.