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THE HUMMING-BIRD. 



Should it, by any chance, come to the ground 

 before your face, its awkward struggles would shew 

 at once, that it was quite out of its element. 

 Indeed, let authors affirm what they choose to 

 the contrary, you would see with your own eyes, 

 that it could neither hop nor walk ; and that, both 

 its abdominal and caudal plumage, had come in 

 contact with the mire, for want of longer legs 

 to sustain the bird in a proper attitude. 



In forming its nest, the whole of the materials 

 are collected from plants, trees, and spiders webs. 

 Some of these nests are beautifully formed of one 

 uniform interwoven material, without any lining, 

 and they put you in mind of brown tanned leather. 

 Others have a delicate and an uncommonly soft 

 lining, taken from the wild ipecacuanha. Many 

 are placed upon the upper part of a horizontal 

 branch, and are so studded with the lichen found 

 on the tree, that it is no easy matter to distinguish 

 the nest. Some are attached to the extremity of a 

 pendant leaf, well secured by innumerable threads 

 of the spider's web ; and forming a most curious 

 sample of ornithological architecture. Nothing of 

 the nature of glue, nor any other viscous sub- 

 stance, is made use of by the old bird in the 

 fabrication of her nest. Spiders' web supplies the 

 place of these ; and we see, on inspection, that this 



