For this light lover of flowers lives at their expense without ever blighting them. He only pumps their honey, and for this alone his tongue seems designed. The vivacity of these small birds, is only equaled by their courage, or rather their audacity. Sometimes they may be seen furiously chasing birds twenty times their size, fastening upon their bodies, letting themselves be carried along in their flight, while they peck fiercely until their tiny rage is satisfied. Sometimes they fight each other vigorously.
Impatience seems their very essence.
If they approach a blossom and find it faded, they mark their spite by a hasty rending of the petals. Their only voice is a weak cry of Screp, screp, frequent and repeated, which they utter in the woods from dawn until at the first rays of the sun they all take flight and scatter over the country. The nest is a circle an inch and a half in diameter, made of fern wood, plant down, and so forth, shingled with lichens to match the color of the branch on which it rests. Its only note is a shrill, mouse-like squeak.