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Updated: May 19, 2025
Every now and then a ruby-throated hummingbird darted quickly above the water-parsnips straight to the cardinal throat of the other flower, and found refreshment served in frail blossom-ware of the glorious color he loved best of all.
Presently the susurrus of the hummingbird was heard, and a moment later two ruby-throats, a male and a female, flashed into view on the slope below me. The tiny madam settled on a twig near the ground, while her ruby-throated spouse performed one of the queerest antics I have ever witnessed in featherland.
I asked. "Most of them," said the Doctor. "But a few rare ones visit me every year who ordinarily never come near England at all. For instance, that handsome little fellow hovering over the snapdragon there, he's a Ruby-throated Humming-bird. Comes from America. Strictly speaking, he has no business in this climate at all. It is too cool. I make him sleep in the kitchen at night.
But she could see also broken coops, pens, cages, and boxes lying before it, and stopped once, even in her grief and indignation, to pick up a ruby-throated lizard, one of its late inmates that had stopped in the trail, stiffened to stone at her approach. The next moment she was before the roofless walls, and then stopped, stiffened like the lizard.
A ruby-throated humming-bird flashed suddenly past them and was gone; a red-shafted woodpecker, still more gorgeous in his scarlet plumage, descended in uneven flights from the sahuaros that clung against the cliff and, fastening upon a hollow tree, set up a mysterious rapping. "He is hunting for grubs," explained Hardy. "Does that inspire you?" "Why, no," answered Lucy, puzzled.
Some, like thick white muslin, lay upon the grass; while others were suspended from trees like forest lace-work, on the threads of which the dewdrops hung like strings of shining pearls; and hovering round the flowers were several ruby-throated humming-birds, the whirring of whose wings as they beat the air sounded like the humming of a spinning-wheel; and I thought as I gazed upon them, and the beautiful lace webs that hung among the bushes, that they must have been the work of these curious creatures, who had made them to catch flies, and had strung the bright dewdrops thereon to entice them, so little did I know of the nature of these birds; but my father told me a great deal about them, and read me some very pretty things about humming-birds; and one day, Lady Mary, I will show you a stuffed one a friend gave me, with its tiny nest and eggs not bigger than peas."
My attention is soon arrested by a pair of hummingbirds, the ruby-throated, disporting themselves in a low bush a few yards from me. The female takes shelter amid the branches, and squeaks exultingly as the male, circling above, dives down as if to dislodge her. Seeing me, he drops like a feather on a slender twig, and in a moment both are gone.
A relation of theirs though we should never guess it is sitting upon her tiny air castle high up in an apple tree not far away, a ruby-throated hummingbird. If we take a peep into the nest when the young hummingbirds are only partly grown, we shall see that their bills are broad and stubby, like those of the swifts.
Certain it is that our ruby-throated hummingbird robs many webs to fasten together the plant down, wood pulp, and lichens which compose her dainty nest. Search the pond and you will find another member of the spider family swimming about at ease beneath the surface, thoroughly aquatic in habits, but breathing a bubble of air which he carries about with him.
During all this time I was hoping to see her mate. But if he appeared at all, as several times a ruby-throated individual did, she promptly sent him about his business. It was the 19th of July when I decided that sitting had finally begun on the poplar-tree nest, madam controlling her restlessness sometimes for the great space of ten minutes, and working no more on the structure.
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