LONG-TAILED HUMMING-BIRD. lOT 



when I was within three or four yards, it flew. 

 I looked into the nest, but thei^e 2vas 7io egg: on 

 search, I found it on the ground beneath, much 

 cracked, but not crushed. How could it have 

 come there ? The bush, to the main stem of which 

 it was attached, was too strong for the rising of 

 the bird to have jerked it out ; beside which, such 

 result was not likely to happen from an action tak- 

 ing place many times every day. It must, I think, 

 have been taken out by the bird. I replaced the 

 cracked egg, and a day or two afterwards, visited 

 it again: the nest w^as again empty, and evidently 

 deserted. 



On the 12tli of November, we took, in Blue- 

 fields morass, the nest of a Polytmus, containing 

 two eggs, one of which had the chick considerably 

 advanced, the other was freshly laid. The nest 

 was placed on a hanging twig of a black-mangrove 

 tree, the twig passing perpendicularly through the 

 side, and out at the bottom. It is now before me. 

 It is a very compact cup, Ij inch deep without, 

 and 1 inch deep within ; the sides about \ inch 

 thick, the inner margin a little overarching, so as 

 to narrow the opening : the total diameter at top, 

 IJ inch; 1 inch in the clear. It is mainly com- 

 posed of silk-cotton very closely pressed, mixed 

 with the still more glossy cotton of an asclepias, 

 particularly around the edge ; the seed remaining 

 attached to some of the filaments. On the outside 

 the whole structure is quite covered with spiders' 

 web, crossed and recrossed in every direction, and 

 made to adhere by some viscous substance, evi- 



