144 BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



nest, a beautiful cup-shaped structure, is composed of downy sub- 

 tances, chiefly of a vegetable character, covered externally with lich- 

 ens " which are glued on with the viscid saliva of the little workers;' 1 

 in many instances the lichen coverings are strengthened by strands 

 of cobwebs. This bird is not at all particular as to the situation which 

 it chooses for nest-building. Sometimes it builds in a honeysuckle 

 vine or a rose bush ; at other times it erects a domicile in an apple or 

 pear tree, usually, however, the nest is built on an oak or beech tree 

 in the woods, and is placed mostly on the upper side of a horizontal 

 limb. It is constructed by the united labor of both birds, who com- 

 plete the work in five or six days. In this locality the nest is gener- 

 ally built about the last week in May. A nest now before me meas- 

 ures a little over one inch and a half in height and one inch and a 

 half in diameter ; the cavity is three-quarters of an inch wide and the 

 same in depth. This nest was built on the upright limb of a beech 

 tree, where for three consecutive years a pair of Hummers regularly 

 nested, each season building a new nest over the few remaining frag- 

 ments of their abode of the previous year. The white eggs, never 

 more than two in number, are elliptical in shape, equally obtuse at 

 both ends and measure .50 by .33 of an inch. The period of incuba- 

 tion is about ten days. Occasionally, though rarely I think, two 

 broods are reared in one season. Although these birds feed among 

 the flowers of various plants, they prefer those of the horse chestnut, 

 honeysuckle and trumpet vine. From the fact that these diminutive 

 creatures are generally observed about flowering plants, the popular 

 yet erroneous belief has arisen that they subsist entirely on the sweets 

 of flowers. Audubon writing of this species, says : u Their food consists 

 principally of insects, generally of the coleopterous order, these, to- 

 gether with some equally diminutive flies, being commonly found in 

 their stomachs. The first are procured within the flowers, but many 

 of the latter on the wing. The Hummingbird 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 sup- 

 port 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 corallas of which 

 water with honey or sugar dissolved in itwas 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 ema- 

 ciated. 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 gauge netting, through which minute 

 insects were able to enter, lived twelve months, at the expiration of 

 which time they were liberated." 



