THE RUBY-THROATED HUMMING-BIRD. 
193 
the innermost of silky fibres obtained from various plants, all extremely 
delicate and soft. On this comfortable bed, as if in contradiction to the axiom 
that the smaller the species the greater the number of eggs, the female lays 
only two, which are pure white and almost oval. Ten days are required for 
their hatching, and the birds raise two broods in a season. In one week the 
young are ready to fly, but are fed by the parents for nearly another week. 
They receive their food directly from the bill of their parents, which 
disgorge it in the manner of Canaries or Pigeons. It is my belief that no 
sooner are the young able to provide for themselves than they associate with 
other broods, and perform their migration apart from the old birds, as I 
have observed twenty or thirty young Humming-birds resort to a group of 
trumpet-flowers, when not a single old male was to be seen. They do not 
receive the full brilliancy of their colours until the succeeding spring, 
although the throat of the male bird is strongly imbued with the ruby tints 
before they leave us in autumn. 
The Ruby-throated Humming-bird has a particular liking for such flowers 
as are greatly tubular in their form. The common jimpson-weed or thorn- 
apple ( Datura stramonium) and the trumpet-flower ( Bignonia radicans) 
are among the most favoured by their visits, and after these, honey-suckle. 
the balsam of the gardens, and the wild species which grows on the borders 
of ponds, rivulets, and deep ravines ; but every flower, down to the wild 
violet, affords them a certain portion of sustenance. Their food consists 
principally of insects, generally of the coleopterous order, these, together 
with some equally diminutive flies, being commonly found in their stomach. 
The first are procured within the flowers, but many of the latter on wing. 
The Humming-bird 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 support them, is used more as if to allay their thirst. 1 
have seen many of these birds kept in partial confinement, when they were 
supplied with artificial flowersmade for the purpose, in the corollas of which 
water with honey or sugar dissolved in it was 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 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 voyage to 
perform. The room was kept artificially warm during the winter months, 
and these, in Lower Louisiana, are seldom so cold as to produce ice. On 
examining an orange-tree which had been placed in the room where these 
Yol. IV. 27 
