Show Out of Doors in the West Sketches of Natural History in the Rocky Mountain Plateau Edited by J. H. of Study In the University of Utah Air Gems and Flower Jewels the Art thou or or butterfly and all a bird in shape am I A collecting sweets from bloom to A butterfly in brilliancy of Adl know these birds at even when they are seen for the first gems shining in the or jewels flashing among the flowers they the humming birds are widely celebrated as the strangest most fascinating of the bird Here in the west almost every one has experienced the delight of beholding one or more kinds of the tiniest and most beautiful of the They are found only in and are most species all in the About seventeen kinds come into the United States in leaving again in the In Emigration one day in early my nature classes as they rested take luncheon in a green bower surrounded by a humming bird's nest just above their on a long birch branch that bent over toward the The mother bird was brooding on the and the male bird repeatedly flew poising in the air before us as if to attract us away from his In the east they have only one kind the ruby throat but a dozen kinds are quite common throughout the Rocky and we often see them in September when the schools The Black The black chinned humming bird is so named because the chin and upper part of the throat are velvety The back the neck shows some violet and changes to glittering or peacock-green in some yet this is the plainest colored of our The female has none of these metallic being bronzy green on the In the tail feathers are tipped with The sides of the tody are the tail feathers the metallic The male has the tail slightly that of the female is slightly I have found this bird nesting on the limbs of apple The tiny nest looks like a small knot on the and exactly harmonizes with the tree in here the little plain-colored female and you may quite close to yet she will not The nest contains two or three white and is made of white down from willow The bird mixes its saliva with the downy material and so fastens it to the Lord observed the black chinned humming birds busily employed in picking off and devouring numerous insects that had been trapped in sticky gum exuding from the bark of birch This species ranges from the mountains to the It builds in the willows and high in the Its nest is often found in the gardens of western v One brood is raised on the hillsides among the flowers then the birds go higher and rear another They make a metallic rattle in and have a squeaky little The I have often seen the Rufous in flocks of many scores hovering over the great grape-like clusters of the deep blue or monk's gleaming like jewels in the The costliest gems could not excel the splendor of the hues of this little as its dazzling brightness flashed through the This is our largest with a general reddish-brown and a wedge-shaped The upper parts and breast are cinnamon sometimes fire and brassy it is metallic on the and has a ruff of red around the neck with a white collar below The female has green on the back and bears less of Rufous is found all over western America at medium It is a noisy producing several Monks columbines and painted cups are their especial They circle around the probing its tubes as they for the most part the pugnacious little scraps would be whizzing in and gleams of or scarlet glancing from their as they streaked after one climbing the air bill to or shooting up and sweeping apparently from sheer exuberance of They seem always to be among and promptly drive off other humming As soon as the last brood is out of the warned by the frosty nights the decreasing supply of start for their winter leaving the females and young to follow k The Broad How often the nestlings of the humming bird must perish in cold and rainy At the southern 4 rim of the Great guided by a bird observer to a nest of the broad tailed we found it with the two nestlings dead How these baby birds died we did not Had a cat or a boy killed the mother bird as she hovered over the 1 I hope thought it must have been because some heavy rain had drenched the mother who would then fly about in order to get In such case the nestlings might get rained upon before the mate took his place on the Le he ever does The little skeletons were no larger than and the bit of fuzz that clung to the needle-like bones i little suit oi must have been the baby birds' first had Dee The no larger than common kept warm by the mother till the baby bin within had become too large for the shell and had oe-gun to peck at it with a sort of tooth on the end 01 the tiny Outside of the on the of for the parent we found some pieces egg birds drop the shells out of the nest as soon as At first these tiny young begin to break in the nest with closed birds were lying flat eyes as if The mother bird brooded over them keep them Most father birds bring food to L. the mother and young at this but some humming P birds do perhaps because the shining colors of the male might show to cats or snakes the hiding place fcc of the Their first suit is of fine like cot- then feather begin to and the young birds look like their The next spring the male bird gets a suit of bright |