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HUMMING BIRD. 
This little bird is extremely susceptible of cold, and, if long 
deprived of the animating influence of the sunbeams, droops 
and soon dies. A very beautiful male was brought me this 
season, [1809,] which I put into a wire cage, and placed in a 
retired shaded part of the room. After fluttering about for 
some time, the weather being uncommonly cool, it clung by 
the wires, and hung in a seemingly torpid state for a whole 
forenoon. No motion whatever of the lungs could be per- 
ceived, on the closest inspection ; though, at other times, this 
is remarkably observable ; the eyes were shut ; and, when 
touched by the finger, it gave no signs of life or motion. I 
carried it out to the open air, and placed it directly in the rays 
of the sun, in a sheltered situation. In a few seconds, respi- 
ration became very apparent; the bird breathed faster and 
faster, opened its eyes, and began to look about, with as much 
seeming vivacity as ever. After it had completely recovered, 
I restored it to liberty ; and it flew off to the withered top of 
a pear tree, where it sat for some time dressing its disordered 
plumage, and then shot off like a meteor. 
The flight of the Humming Bird, from flower to flower, 
greatly resembles that of a bee ; but is so much more rapid, 
that the latter appears a mere loiterer to him. He poises 
himself on wing, while he thrusts his long, slender, tubular 
tongue into the flowers in search of food. He sometimes 
enters a room by the window, examines the bouquets of j 
flowers, and passes out by the opposite door or window. He 
has been known to take refuge in a hot-house during the cool 
nights of autumn, to go regularly out in the morning, and to 
return as regularly in the evening, for several days together. 
The Humming Bird has, hitherto, been supposed to subsist j 
altogether on the honey, or liquid sweets, which it extracts 
from flowers. One or two curious observers have, indeed, 
remarked, that they have found evident fragments of insects 
in the stomach of this species ; but these have been generally 
believed to have been taken in by accident. The few oppor- 
tunities which Europeans have to determine this point by 
