This is an American family, and no country in the world can show a more beautiful one. There are more than four hundred species, and some of them hardly bigger than a bee. All of these birds have brilliant colors that are called metallic. That is, they glitter like metal, and they show different colors when they are turned different ways.

All hummingbirds fly very swiftly. You know how they go,—not straight like most birds, but darting one way and another so quickly they can hardly be seen. As they fly, their wings move so fast they look almost like little clouds, and we hear the low noise we call humming.

Hummingbirds eat nothing but tiny insects, and the honey of flowers, which they suck up through their long bill. They take their food without alighting, for they can hold themselves still before a flower, with the wonderful wings, as long as they choose.

The bill of a hummingbird is much longer than his head. It is something like a pair of tubes through which he can draw up the sweet juices he likes. The tongue is long too, and it can be pushed out far beyond the end of the bill. It looks like a stiff white thread.

We have in the Eastern States but one species, the ruby-throat, but there are several in California.

No bird is more charming than our common Ruby-throated Hummingbird. He is most often seen flitting about among the flowers. But now and then one may catch him sitting demurely on a dead twig, dressing his tiny feathers.

This bird is all in green, with a brilliant ruby-colored throat, which looks like a gem as he darts about. His mate is in green also, but her throat is white.

You would not think this pretty midget could be a fighter, but he is. When a hummingbird finds a vine full of sweet blossoms, or a bed of bright nasturtiums, or any good place to feed in, he claims the whole of it for himself. He tries to drive away every other hummingbird who comes near it. Sometimes two of them will carry on a quarrel over a honeysuckle vine for days.

The hummingbird is the most pugnacious bird in America. If he were as big as a crow, he would be a terror to man and beast, for he is afraid of nothing. This spirited mite of a bird will even attack an eagle, who is big enough to eat him at a mouthful. He beats him too, for he comes down on top of his head, where the big, clumsy fellow cannot get at him. There he pecks and pulls out feathers till the eagle is glad to get out of his clutches.

A hummingbird's nest is one of the prettiest things in the world. It is not much bigger than a walnut, and is made of soft plant down, usually of a yellowish gray color.

Perhaps you don't see how plant down can be made to keep in shape, without twigs or grasses to hold it. If you could see the bird make it, you would understand at once. She brings her stuff in small mouthfuls, and works it into a solid mass by strong efforts with beak and feet. She pokes and prods each tiny bunch as she brings it, till she makes it all hold together. It is a sort of felt.

Then the little worker covers the outside with bits of lichen picked off the trees, and held on, it is said, by cobwebs. This makes the nest look exactly like the branch it is on. So it is very hard to see.

It takes a hummingbird several days of hard work to make a nest, because she can bring only a little at a time. She does it alone too; her mate has not been seen to help her at all.

I think the male ruby-throat does not help in the nest-building because the little mother will not let him. She knows just how the cradle is to be made, and she doesn't want him to bother her. She likes to have her nest to herself just as she likes to have her honeysuckle to herself. I don't say positively that is the reason, you know; I only guess it is.

After the nest is made, and two eggs about as big as small beans are laid, the hummingbird begins to sit. When the nestlings come out of the egg, they are about the size of honey bees, with bills no larger than the head of a common pin. Twenty-one days they stay in the nest and are fed by their hard-working little mother.

When the twins get their feathers, and their bills are growing longer and longer, they sit up across the top of the nest, side by side. Then they are very pretty, and not at all afraid of people. They will let one gently stroke their backs. They will even answer in a soft murmur one who talks to them.

Hummingbirds are never so afraid of people as other birds. They are easily tamed. But they should never be caged, for they will not live long in a house. They need food that we cannot give them.

A man had a hummingbird whom he kept alive a long time by letting him go free when he seemed to need change of food. He would fly off, but always came back. After the bird got to be very tame, the man brought two young hummingbirds and put them in the cage with him. He did not notice them much till they began to droop. Then the man opened the door to let them out.

At once the elder bird took the little ones in charge, and coaxed them to fly out with him. He led them to a place where he had found the tiny spiders these birds like, and showed them how to get what they wanted. They all ate their fill and then came back to the house, where they were well contented to be.

The way the mother hummingbird feeds her babies is curious. When she comes with food, she alights on the edge of the nest, and pulls a little one up so that she can get at it. Then she runs her long, slim bill down its throat, and pokes the food in with little jerks. It looks as if it would kill the youngster, but he seems to like it. Anyway, he grows very fast, and—as I said—in three weeks he is beautifully feathered, with a bill as long as his mother's, and ready to fly.

A lady who had two young hummingbirds told me that they slept so soundly they were like dead birds. One could take them up and carry them about, and they would not wake. In cold weather she often wrapped one up in a piece of flannel and laid him in a soft, warm place, and he never stirred till morning.

The way she got this pair of birds was interesting. She was walking in the woods and broke a dead branch from a tree, to use for something. On turning it over she saw a nest, and strange to say two little birds in it. She had been holding it upside down, but they had held on so tightly that they did not fall out.

The lady did not know what to do. She did not want baby hummingbirds, but she couldn't put the branch back, and she was afraid their mother would not find them if she left them. So she took them home. She had no trouble to feed them, and they lived with her six weeks, and died by accident at last.

It is thought that the male ruby-throat does not come to the nest at all, but he must have some way of knowing how things are going on. At Mrs. Wright's summer home a mother hummingbird was killed in a hailstorm, while young were in the nest. At once the father, or at least a male bird, came and fed and took care of the nestlings till they flew.

In California one of the most common of this family is Anna's Hummingbird. He is green, with a throat and crown of changeable colors, lilac and red.

The nest of this bird is usually, like the ruby-throat's, of plant down covered with lichens. But some have been found made of the blossoms of the eucalyptus, or gum-tree. This bird is as easily tamed as the ruby-throat, and seems to act a good deal like him.

Mrs. Grinnell found a nest in her yard in California. The mother allowed herself to be photographed in many positions. The young ones were never afraid, and did not mind the camera in the least. Hummingbirds never seem to have any fear of people.