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.
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