118 HUMMING BIRD. 
of those few birds that are universally beloved; and amidst the sweet, 
dewy serenity of a summer’s morning, his appearance among the 
arbors of honeysuckles, and beds of flowers, is truly interesting 
When the morning dawns, and the blest sun again 
Lifts his red glories from the eastern main, 
Then through our woodbines, wet with glittering dews, 
The flower-fed Humming Bird his round pursues ; 
Sips, with inserted tube, the honey’d blooms, 
And chirps his gratitude as round he roams ; 
While richest roses, though in crimson drest, 
Shrink from the splendor of his gorgeous breast. 
What heavenly tints in mingling radiance fly ! 
Each rapid movement gives a different dye 5 
Like scales of burnish’d gold they dazzling show, 
Now sink to shade — now like a furnace glow ! 
The singularity of this little bird has induced many persons to 
attempt to raise them from the nest, and accustom them to the cage. 
Mr. Coffer, of Fairfax county, Virginia, a gentleman who has paid 
great attention to the manners and peculiarities of our native birds, told 
me that he raised and kept two, for some months, in a cage ; supplying 
them with honey dissolved in water, on which they readily fed. As the 
sweetness of the liquid frequently brought small flies and gnats about 
the cage and cup, the birds amused themselves by snapping at them 
on wing, and swallowing them with eagerness, so that these insects 
formed no inconsiderable part of their food. Mr. Charles Wilson 
Peale, proprietor of the museum, tells me that he had two young 
Humming Birds, which he raised from the nest. They used to fly 
about the room, and would frequently perch on Mrs. Peale’s shoulder 
to be fed. When the sun shone strongly in the chamber, he has 
observed them darting after the motes that floated in the light, as 
Flycatchers would after flies. In the summer of 1803, a nest of 
young Humming Birds was brought me, that were nearly fit to fly. 
One of them actually flew out by the window the same evening, and, 
falling against a wall, was killed. The other refused food, and the 
next morning I could but just perceive that it had life. A lady in the 
house undertook to be its nurse, placed it in her bosom, and, as it 
began to revive, dissolved a little sugar in her mouth, into which she 
thrust its bill, and it sucked with great avidity. In this manner it 
was brought up until fit for the cage. [ kept it upwards of three 
months, supplied it with loaf sugar dissolved in water, which it pre- 
ferred to honey and water, gave it fresh flowers every morning 
sprinkled with the liquid, and surrounded the space in which I kept 
it with gauze, that it might not injure itself, It appeared gay, active, 
and full of spirit, hovering from flower to flower, as if in its native 
wilds, and always expressed, by its motions and chirping, great 
pleasure at seeing fresh flowers introduced to its cage. Numbers of 
people visited it from motives of curiosity; and I took every precau- 
tion to preserve it, if possible, through the winter. Unfortunately, 
however, by some means it 4 tt at large, and, flying about the room, 
so injured itself that it soon after died. : 
This little bird is extremely susceptible of cold, and, if long de- 
prived of the animating influence of the sunbeams, droops, and soon 
dies. A very beautiful male was brought me this season, [1809,} 
