590 
SLENDER-BILLED BIRDS. 
objects, instinctively form the deceiving external coat ; 
portions of the cunning architecture, for further security, 
are even tied down to the supporting station. Within are 
laid copious quantities of the pappus or other down of 
plants ; the inner layer of this exquisite bed is finished 
with the short wool of the budding Platanus, the mul- 
lein, or the soft clothing of unfolding fern-stalks. The 
eggs, as in the whole genus, are white, and only 2, so 
nearly oblong as to present no difference of ends. Incu- 
bation, so tedious to the volatile pair, is completed in the 
short space of 10 days, and in the warmer States, a second 
brood is raised. On approaching the nest, they dart 
around the intruder, within a few inches of his face ; and 
the female, if the young are out, often resumes her seat, 
though no more than three or four feet from the observer. 
In a single w r eek the young are on the wing, and in 
this situation still continue to be fed with their nursing 
sweets by the assiduous parents. Creatures of such 
delicacy and uncommon circumstances, the wondrous 
sports of nature, every thing appears provided for the se- 
curity of their existence. The brood are introduced to 
life in the warmest season of the year ; variation of tem- 
perature beyond a certain medium, would prove destruc- 
tive to these exquisite forms. The ardent heats of Amer- 
ica have alone afforded them support ; no region, so cool 
as the United States, produces a set of feathered beings 
so delicate and tender ; and, consequently, any sudden 
extremes, by producing chill and famine, are fatal to our 
Humming-Birds. In the present, remarkably wet sum- 
mer (1831), very few of the young have been raised in 
New England. In other seasons they comparatively 
swarm, and the numerous and almost gregarious young 
are then seen, till the close of September, eagerly engag- 
ed in sipping the nectar from various showy and tubular 
