102 
WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS. 
of this class — come across a most charmingly told account 
of the entire domestication of a family of humming birds, 
by a gentleman of New England, who managed to keep 
them for two yeai^ in his large conservatory. 
He had, by the merest accident, discovered the nest in a 
very large and heavy woodbine honeysuckle, which hung 
over the window of his sitting-room, and the idea at once 
occurred to him of gradually enticing the old birds into the 
room, which opened into the conservatory, and then trans 
ferring thither the nest with the young. The plan, after a 
great deal of patient dexterity, succeeded, and this lovely 
little family became his inmates and friends along with the 
flowers. The relation of this gentleman was sufficiently 
pleasing to enchant me — but there was not enough of the 
naturalist in it to satisfy me. We had great honeysuckles 
too ; why did they not build there as well ? Hundreds of 
times I had searched their intricacies with patient zeal, twig 
by twig, tendril by tendril ; and this for years — yet there 
were hundreds around me all day 1 There was something 
in this I did not understand. 
At last, in the work of a French Naturalist of note, M. 
Yalliant, I found the hint, that many of the smaller tropical 
birds, among them the Hummers, invariably built their nests, 
Vvdiere the locality of feeding grounds rendered it possible 
for them to make such a selection, upon the pensile limbs of 
those trees that hung far over running water, as their most 
dreaded enemies, the monkeys and snakes, were both very 
cautious of venturing out upon such insecure foothold to rob. 
This hint I accordingly treasured, and literally haunted the 
brooks, the creek and river sides in the spring months, 
watching with the ceaseless hope of catching one of tlie birds 
in the act of alighting on the nest, which I knew was my 
only chance. Still I found no success for years ; but, I had 
gained one piece of information, namely ; — that at eleven 
o'clock, A. M., and five, P. M., if I stood still for a short 
time, I would see them go darting past, directly over the 
