LONG-TAILED HUMMING-BIRD. 115 



Though occasionally they flew against the win- 

 dow, they did not flutter and beat themselves at 

 it, but seemed well content with their parole. 

 As they flew, I repeatedly heard them snap the 

 beak, at which times, they doubtless caught minute 

 flies. After some time, one of them suddenly 

 sunk down in one corner, and on being taken up 

 seemed dying: it had perhaps struck itself in fly- 

 ing. It lingered awhile, and died. The other 

 continued his vivacity; perceiving that he had ex- 

 hausted the flowers, I prepared a tube, made of 

 the barrel of a goose-quill, which I inserted into 

 the cork of a bottle to secure its steadiness and 

 upright position, and filled with juice of sugar- 

 cane. I then took a large Ipomea, and having 

 cut ofl" the bottom, I slipped the flower over the 

 tube, so that the quill took the place of the nec- 

 tary of the flower. The bird flew to it in a 

 moment, clung to the bottle rim, and bringing 

 his beak perpendicular, thrust it into the tube. 

 It was at once evident that the repast was agree- 

 able, for he continued pumping for several seconds, 

 and on his flying ofl', I found the quill emptied. 

 As he had torn off" the flower in his eagerness for 

 more, and even followed the fragments of the co- 

 rolla, as they lay on the table, to search them, 

 I refilled the quill and put a blossom of the Mar- 

 vel of Peru into it, so that the flower expanded 

 over the top. The little toper found it again, 

 and after drinking freely, withdrew his beak, but 

 the blossom was adhering to it as a sheath. This 

 incumbrance he presently got rid of, and then, (which 



