94 PRESERVATION IN CAPTITITT. 



he states, which were supplied twice a day with 

 fresh flowers from the woods or garden, placed 

 in a room with windows closed merely with mos- 

 quito gauze-netting, through which minute in- 

 sects were able to enter, lived twelve months, at 

 the expiration of which time their liberty was 

 granted them. The room was kept artificially 

 warm during the winter months, and a growing 

 orange tree was also placed in it. This was in 

 Lower Louisiana, where ice is seldom produced 

 in the winter. Mr. Audubon further observes, 

 that although he has occasionally seen these 

 birds confined in the middle districts of the 

 States, he has never ascertained an instance of 

 one surviving the winter. 



Mr. G-osse made several attempts to rear the 

 LONG-TAILED HUMMING-BIRD from the nest, 

 and on one occasion with success ; and it is re- 

 markable that in each instance the nest con- 

 tained only a single young one. On the 20th of 

 May, 1846, he obtained the nest of one of this 

 species, which was amxed to a twig of sweet- 

 wood (Laurus). It contained a young one un- 

 fledged, the feathers only budding. At first it 

 was fed with sugar dissolved in water, which it 

 readily sucked from a quill many times in the 

 course of the day : occasionally mosquitoes and 

 other small insects were put into the syrup, and 

 these it seemed to like, but particularly ants, 

 which crowded into the sweet fluid and over- 

 spread its surface. The quill would thus contain 

 a dozen at a time, which were sucked in witji 



