268 THE LANGUAGE OF BIRDS. 
Mrs. Peale's shoulder to be fed. When the sun 
shone strongly into the chamber, he has observed 
them darting after the moats that floated in the light, 
as fly-catchers would after flies. In the summer of 
1803, a nest of young humming-birds was brought 
to me that were nearly fit to fly. One of them 
actually flew out by the window the same evening, 
and, falling against a wall, was killed. The other 
refused food, and the next morning, I could but 
just perceive that it had life. A lady in the house 
undertook to be its nurse, placed it in her bosom, 
and, as it began to revive, dissolved a little sugar in 
her mouth, into which she thrust its beak, and it 
sucked with great avidity. In this manner it was 
brought up until fit for the cage. I kept it upwards 
of three months, supplied it with loaf-sugar dissolved 
in water, which it preferred to honey and water; 
gave it fresh flowers every morning sprinkled with the 
liquid, and surrounded the space in which I kept it 
with gauze, that it might not injure itself. It ap- 
peared gay, active, and full of spirit, hovering from 
flower to flower as if in its native wilds, and always 
expressed, by its motions and chirping, great pleasure 
at seeing fresh flowers introduced to its cage. Num- 
