590 SLENDER-BILLED BIRDS. 



objects, instinctively form the deceiving external coat ; 

 portions of the cunning architecture, for further security, 

 are even tied down to the supporting station. Within are 

 laid copious quantities of the pappus or other down of 

 plants ; the inner layer of this exquisite bed is finished 

 with the short wool of the budding Platanus, the mul- 

 lein, or the soft clothing of unfolding fern-stalks. The 

 eggs, as in the whole genus, are white, and only 2, so 

 nearly oblong as to present no difference of ends. Incu- 

 bation, so tedious to the volatile pair, is completed in the 

 short space of 10 days, and in the warmer States, a second 

 brood is raised. On approaching the nest, they dart 

 around the intruder, within a few inches of his face ; and 

 the female, if the young are out, often resumes her seat, 

 though no more than three or four feet from the observer. 

 In a single week the young are on the wing, and in 

 this situation still continue to be fed with their nursing 

 sweets by the assiduous parents. Creatures of such 

 delicacy and uncommon circumstances, the wondrous 

 sports of nature, every thing appears provided for the se- 

 curity of their existence. The brood are introduced to 

 life in the warmest season of the year ; variation of tem- 

 perature beyond a certain medium, would prove destruc- 

 tive to these exquisite forms. The ardent heats of Amer- 

 ica have alone afforded them support ; no region, so cool 

 as the United States, produces a set of feathered beings 

 so delicate and tender ; and, consequently, any sudden 

 extremes, by producing chill and famine, are fatal to our 

 Humming-Birds. In the present, remarkably wet sum- 

 mer (1831), very few of the young have been raised in 

 New England. In other seasons they comparatively 

 swarm, and the numerous and almost gregarious young 

 are then seen, till the close of September, eagerly engag- 

 ed in sipping the neciar from various showy and tubular 



