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Updated: May 29, 2025
The absence of the father bird for all this time, though I have mentioned it but casually, was of course a subject of continual remark. How was it to be explained? My own opinion is, reluctant as I have been to reach it, that such absence or desertion by whatever name it may be called is the general habit of the male ruby-throat.
Going into my front hall, whose veranda-door framed in a sunny picture of orange-boughs, jasmine-vines, and white-clouded blue sky, I had found a male ruby-throat circling about the ceiling, not wise enough to stoop, fly low, and pass out by the way it had come in. It occurred to me that it might be the mate of the one already mine.
First carefully locating the tiny object by means of a dead branch, for I knew I should have to seek it again if I lost it then, and the luck of finding it so easily could not fall to me twice, I rushed to the house to share my enthusiasm with a sympathizer. My lady ruby-throat was a canny bird; she had selected her position with judgment.
In the light of the testimony to which you refer, I should conclude, with you, that the male hummer must occasionally assist in the care of the young, but I am very sure that this is not usually, if indeed often, the case." Mr. H. W. Henshaw reported a similar experience. He had found four nests of the ruby-throat, but had seen no male about any of them after nidification was begun.
In the four other instances no male birds were observed, notwithstanding three of the nests were taken, a tragedy which might be expected to bring the father of the family upon the scene, if he were anywhere within call. In view of the foregoing evidence, it appears to me reasonably certain that the male ruby-throat, as a rule, takes no considerable part in the care of eggs and young.
The nest of the ruby-throat is of a most delicate nature; the external parts being formed of a little grey lichen found on the branches of the trees, glued together by the saliva of the bird, and neatly arranged round the whole of the nest, as well as to some distance from the spot where it is attached to the branch or stem itself.
"No," replied Lucien, "it is the female of the same; but its colour is not so bright, and you may notice that it wants the ruby-throat." "I see no others," said Francois, after a pause. "I think there are but the two," remarked Lucien, "a male and female. It is their breeding season. No doubt their nest is near." "Shall we try to catch them?" inquired Francois.
Upon this there were about a dozen of these spines pointing upward, and upon each spike was impaled a ruby-throat! The little creatures were dead, of course, but they were neither torn nor even much ruffled in their plumage. They were all placed back upwards, and as neatly spitted upon the thorns as if they had been put there by human hands.
For myself, indeed, as I have already said, I hold no brief against the ruby-throat, and, notwithstanding the seemingly unfavorable result of my investigation into his habits as a husband and father, it is by no means clear to me that we must call him hard names.
Its feet had scarcely touched the bright petals, when the male ruby-throat darted towards it, and attacked it like a little fury. Both came out of the flower together, carrying on their miniature battle as they flew; but, after a short contest, the bee turned tail, and flew off with an angry-like buzz, no doubt, occasioned by the plying of his wings more rapidly in flight.
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