HUMMING BIRD. 
181 
who has paid great attention to the manners and peculiarities 
of our native birds, told me, that he raised, and kept two, for 
some months, in a cage ; supplying them with honey dissolved 
in water, on which they readily fed. As the sweetness of the 
liquid frequently brought small flies and gnats about the cage 
and cup, the birds amused themselves by snapping at them 
on wing, and swallowing them with eagerness, so that these 
insects formed no inconsiderable part of their food. Mr 
Charles Wilson Peale, proprietor of the museum, tells me, 
that he had two young Humming Birds, which he raised from 
the nest. They used to fly about the room ; and would 
frequently perch on Mrs Peale’s shoulder to be fed. When 
the sun shone strongly in the chamber, he has observed 
them darting after the motes that floated in the light, as 
Flycatchers would after flies. In the summer of 1803, a nest 
of young Humming Birds was brought 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 
bill, 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 appeared 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. Numbers of people visited it from 
motives of curiosity ; and I took every precaution to preserve 
it, if possible, through the winter. Unfortunately, however, 
by some means it got at large, and, flying about the room, 
so injured itself that it soon after died. 
