122 
WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS. 
tremely 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 journey to perform. The 
room was kept artificially warmed during the winter months, 
and these in Lower Louisiana are seldom so cold as to pro- 
duce ice. On examining an orange-tree which had been 
placed in the room where these humming birds were kept, 
no appearance of a nest was to be seen, although the birds 
had frequently been observed caressing each other. Some 
have been occasionally kept confined in our Middle Dis- 
tricts, but I have not ascertained that any one survived a 
winter." 
Here are some curious facts concerning the most remarka- 
ble variety of the species — the KufPed Humming Bird. They 
are from Nuttall's and Townsend's notes — 
We began," says the first of these enterprising travellers, 
" to meet with this species near the Blue Mountains of the 
Columbia Eiver, in the autumn as we proceeded to the west. 
These were all young birds, and were not very easily distin- 
guished from those of the common species of the same age. 
We now for the first time (April 16) saw the males in num- 
bers, darting, buzzing, and squeaking in the usual manner 
of their tribe ; but when engaged in collecting its accustomed 
sweets in all the energy of life, it seemed like a breathing 
gem, or magic carbuncle of glowing fire, stretching out 
its gorgeous ruff, as if to emulate the sun itself in splendor. 
Towards the close of May the females were sitting, at which 
time the males were uncommonly quarrelsome and vigilant, 
darting out at me as I approached the tree probably near the 
nest, looking like an angry coal of brilliant fire, passing 
within very little of my face, returning several times to the 
attack, sinking and darting with the utmost velocity, at the 
