88 THE ARCHITECTURE OF BIRDS. 
the case in the wildest districts, where they are not 
disturbed by children. Nevertheless, I was never 
able to surprise them in the nest, not even during the 
night, because it is invariably placed in the midst of 
brambles, and cannot be approached without disturb- 
ing them; it is never built in an isolated bush, but 
always in the midst of a clump of bushes difficult of 
access. 
“It is also remarkable, that the first nest of a very 
young pair is never so large nor so well constructed 
as those which they afterward make; an observa- 
tion which, I think, holds very generally in respect of 
birds. 
** A nest so commodious and soft as that of the 
pinc-pinc is envied by many birds which are unhap- 
pily superior to it in strength, and which, after having 
broken its eggs and compelled it to flight, despoil 
its habitation. Thus it frequently happens, that 
when a pair of pinc-pincs have finished the work- 
manship of their little nest, and even sometimes 
after having made several of these, they have not 
had the pleasure of possessing an asylum for their 
young. A sad example of what is seen in the affairs 
of men, among whom the most powerful have exer- 
cised absolute dominion and obliged the weaker to 
obey.”* 
We may with great propriety place here the 
smallest and prettiest nests with which we are ac- 
quainted, those of the humming-birds (T'rochilide, 
Vicors), with whose appearance many of our readers 
may be familiar, as they are by no means uncom- 
mon in museums, their extreme neatness of execu- 
tion and their minute size causing them to be highly 
prized. By far the best description of these which 
we have met with, is that by Wilson of the red- 
throated humming-bird ( Trochilus colubris). ‘ About 
the 25th of April,” he says, “the humming-bird 
usually arrives in Pennsylvania, and about the 10th 
* Oiseaux d’Afrique, vol, iii., p. 91. 
