Mr. Salvin, writing of the pugnacious character of this species, says: “Many a time have I thought to secure a fine male, which I had, perhaps, been following from tree to tree, and had at last seen quietly perched on a leafless twig, when my deadly intention has been anticipated by one less so in fact, but to all appearances equally so in will. Another hummingbird rushes in, knocks the one I covet off his perch, and the two go fighting and screaming away at a pace hardly to be followed by the eye. Another time this flying fight was sustained in midair, the belligerents mounting higher and higher, until the one worsted in battle darts away seeking shelter, followed by the victor, who never relinquishes the pursuit till the vanquished, by doubling and hiding, succeeds in making his escape.” Not only do they resent the presence of their own kind, but also of other hummingbirds. Mr. H. W. Henshaw, who was the first scientist to discover that the Rivoli was a member of the bird fauna of the United States, thus describes its nest: “It is composed of mosses nicely woven into an almost circular cup, the interior possessing a lining of the softest and downiest feathers, while the exterior is elaborately covered with lichens, which are securely bound on by a network of the finest silk from spiders’ webs. It was saddled on the horizontal limb of an alder, about twenty feet above the bed of a running mountain stream, in a glen which was overarched and shadowed by several huge spruces, making it one of the most shady and retired nooks that could be imagined.” The note of this bird gem of the pine-clad mountains is a “twittering sound, louder, not so shrill and uttered more slowly than those of the small hummers.” As the Rivoli hovers over the mescal and gathers from its flowers the numerous insects that infest them; or, as it takes the sweets from the flowers of the boreal honeysuckle, one is reminded of the words of the poet: “Art thou a bird, a bee, or butterfly?” “‘Each and all three—a bird in shape am I, A bee collecting sweets from bloom to bloom, A butterfly in brilliancy of plume.’” THE SEA-GULL. From the frozen Pole to the Tropic sea Thou wingest thy course with the drifting clouds; O’er ghostly bergs and vessels’ shrouds The beat of thy wings is strong and free. Alone, or with thy tribe a host Thou spreadest the bars of the low-ebbed tide. On the wave-washed drift of wrecks canst ride Or crowd the cliffs of a rock bound coast. No home is thine save the ocean’s waste; Unrestrained o’er thousands of miles dost roam; And follow the trail of the liners’ foam On wings that show no signs of haste. Thou canst rest on the height of vessels’ yards, Or the gleaming ice of the northern floe. As the changing tides thou dost come and go And the shifting wind thy strange course guards.