LONG-TAILED HUMMING-BIRD. 107 



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

 I looked into the nest, but there was no 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 was again empty, and evidently 

 deserted. 



On the 12th 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, If inch deep without, 

 and 1 inch deep within ; the sides about i inch 

 thick, the inner margin a little overarching, so as 

 to narrow the opening : the total diameter at top, 

 1|. 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 1 

 web, crossed and recrossed in every direction, and 

 made to adhere by some viscous substance, evi- 



