THE RUBY-THROATED HUMMING-BIRD. 193 



the innermost of silky fibres obtained from various plants, all extremely 

 delicate and soft. On this comfortable bed, as in contradiction to the axiom 

 that the smaller the species the greater the number of eggs, the female lays 

 only two, which are pure white and almost oval. Ten days are required for 

 their hatching, and the birds raise two broods in a season. In one week the 

 young are ready to fly, but are fed by the parents for nearly another week. 

 They receive their food directly from the bill of their parents, which 

 disgorge it in the manner of Canaries or Pigeons. It is my belief that no 

 sooner are the young able to provide for themselves than they associate with 

 other broods, and perform their migration apart from the old birds, as I have 

 observed twenty or thirty young Humming-birds resort to a group of 

 trumpet-flowers, when not a single old male was to be seen. They do not 

 receive the full brilliancy of their colours until the succeeding spring, 

 although the throat of the male bird is strongly imbued with the ruby tints 

 before they leave us in autumn. 



The Ruby-throated Humming-bird has a particular liking for such flowers 

 as are greatly tubular in their form. The common jimpson-weed or thorn- 

 apple (Datura stramonium) and the trumpet-flower (Bignonia radicans) 

 are among the most favoured by their visits, and after these, honey-suckle, 

 the balsam of the gardens, and the wild species which grows on the borders 

 of ponds, rivulets, and deep ravines; but every flower, down to the wild 

 violet, affords them a certain portion of sustenance. Their food consists 

 principally of insects, generally of the coleopterous order, these, together 

 with some equally diminutive flies, being commonly found in their stomach. 

 The first are procured within the flowers, but many of the latter on wing. 

 The Humming-bird might therefore be looked upon as an expert fly-catcher. 

 The nectar or honey which they sip from the different flowers, being of 

 itself insufficient to support them, is used more as if to allay their thirst. I 

 have seen many of these birds 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 examined after death, were found to be extremely emaciated. Others, 

 on the contrary, which were supplied twice a-day with fresh flowers from 

 the woods or garden, placed in a room with windows merely closed with 

 moschetto gauze-netting, through which minute insects were able to enter, 

 lived twelve months, at the expiration of which time their liberty was 

 granted them, the person who kept them having had a long voyage to 

 perform. The room was kept artificially warm during the winter months, 

 and these, in Lower Louisiana, are seldom so cold as to produce ice. On 

 examining an orange-tree which had been placed in the room where these 



Vol. IV. 27 



