LONG-TAILED HUMMING-BIRD. 109 



covered the specific identity of the female. Latham, 

 it is true, long ago describes it conjecturally as 

 the female of Polytmus ; but Lesson, in his " Ois. 

 Mouches," has treated the supposition as ground- 

 less. I may observe that to satisfy myself I was 

 in the habit of dissecting my specimens, and in- 

 variably found, with one exception, the green- 

 breasted to be males, the white-breasted to be 

 females.* But to return. On the 20th of May 

 of the present year (1846), Sam brought me the 

 nest of a Polytmus, which had been affixed to a 

 twig of sweet-wood {Laurus). It contained one 

 young, unfledged, the feathers just budding, I 

 began to feed it with sugar dissolved in water, pre- 

 sented in a quill, which it readily sucked many 

 times a-day. Occasionally I caught musquitoes, 

 and other small insects, and putting them into the 

 syrup, gave them to the bird; these it seemed 

 to like, but particularly ants, which crowded into 

 the sweet fluid and overspread its surface. The 

 quill would thus take up a dozen at a time, which 

 were sucked in by the little bird with much relish. 

 It throve manifestly, and the feathers grew apace, 

 so that on the 29th, after having been in my pos- 

 session nine days, it was almost ready to leave 

 the nest. But on that day it died. Another I 

 reared under similar circumstances, and in a similar 

 way, until it w^as actually fledged. When nearly 

 full grown, it would rear itself up, touching the 



* The exception is, that a specimen obtained on the b'th of May, in 

 female livery, displayed on dissection two indubitable testes, in the or- 

 dinary situation. 



