CHAP. XXX^VJIL] HUMMING-BIRDS. 331 



vania the latter part of April, and builds its nest 

 there about the middle of May. For the last thirty 

 years, Mr. M llvaine had never been disappointed 

 in seeing it reach Burlington the first week of that 

 month, generally about the middle of the week, its 

 northward progress being apparently hastened or re 

 tarded by the mildness or inclemency of the season. 

 They seem always to wait for the flowering of a 

 species of horse-chesnut, called here the buck-eye, 

 from a fancied likeness of its fruit to the eye of a 

 deer. The bright-red blossoms of this tree supply 

 the nourishment most attractive to these birds, whose 

 arrival had been looked for the very day after I 

 came. Strange to say, one of them, the avant- 

 courier of the feathered host, actually appeared, and 

 next morning, May 7th, hundreds were seen and 

 heard flitting and humming over the trees. A lady 

 sent us word that a straggler from the camp was 

 imprisoned in her greenhouse, and, going there, I saw 

 it poised in the air, sucking honey from the blossom 

 of an orange-tree. The flower was evidently bent 

 down slightly, as if the bird rested its bill upon it 

 to aid its wings in supporting its body in the air, or 

 to steady it. When it wished to go out, it went 

 straight to the window at which it had entered, and, 

 finding it closed, flew rapidly round the large conser 

 vatory, examining all parts of it, without once strik 

 ing the glass or beating its wings against the Avail, 

 as the more timid of the feathered tribe are apt 

 to do. No sooner, however, was a small casement 

 opened, than it darted through it like an arrow. 



