173 



CHAPTER VIII. 



TASTE OF INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS. 



FROM the circumstance of humming-birds frequenting 

 ilowers and thrusting their needle-formed bills into 

 the blossoms, as bees do their tongues and butterflies 

 their suckers, it has been hastily concluded by na- 

 turalists, that, like these insects, they feed on honey. 

 But if suc^ :.vt Mv alists had paused for a moment to 

 conside^ the structure of the organs in the humming- 

 bird^ (TrochilidcK) i their conclusions would not 

 pr naps have been so hasty. Wilson found on re- 

 T eated dissection, that the ruby-throat humming-bird 

 frr *~ochilus colubris) had always a quantity of insects 

 in its stomach, either whole or in fragments * ; and 

 other observers of respectability have confirmed the 

 statement f. The most circumstantial account of this 

 point is given by Audubon in his biography of the 

 same bird. 



"The nectar or honey," he says, " which the hum- 

 ming-birds sip from different flowers, being of itself 

 insufficient to support them, is used more as if to 

 allay their thirst. I have seen many kept in partial 

 confinement, when they were supplied with artificial 

 flowers made for the purpose, in the corollas of which 

 water with honey or sugar dissolved in it was placed. 

 The birds were fed on these substances exclusively, 

 but seldom lived many months, and on being ex- 

 amined after death were found to be extremely ema- 

 ciated. Others, on the contrary, which were supplied 



* Amer, Ornith, ii, 26, f See Waterton's Wanderings, &c 



