THE BIRD WORLD. 
Humming-birds. 
(l 2 o) 
and have lived for several months even in our 
deplorable climate. What has been done once 
can be done again, and next time let us hope 
that it may be with better success. 
Mr. Webber’s is the best known description of 
captive Humming-birds, but he had the great 
advantage of keeping his pets in their native 
air. His account is full of interest, and should 
be read by any intending keeper of these tiny 
birds. Mr. Webber’s Ruby-throat “played 
’possum ” when first caught, but drank syrup as 
soon as this was offered, and plumed itself while 
perched upon its captor’s finger. After three 
weeks it sickened, but having been let fly out 
of doors for a day it returned in good health to 
its cage, hung outside in a lilac-bush. 
The Spider Cure. 
Later on Mr. Webber found the nest of the 
Green Humming-bird with three eggs in it. He 
left home for three weeks, at the end of which 
time he found two fully-fledged young in the 
nest. These he took home, and they fed at once, 
without hesitation, on the syrup. They seemed 
to have been taught to consider it ungenteel to 
look surprised or startled at anything. After 
two or three weeks these young Hummers 
sickened, like the Ruby-throat, and all three 
were let out in the garden. Then they were seen 
to eat spiders, picking them from the centre of 
the web and swallowing them whole. They were 
not observed to eat any other insect, though 
different kinds were offered. 
Subsequently Mr. Webber found the nest of a 
Ruby-throat. In it also there were three eggs, 
but only two birds hatched. He observed that 
when the hen was coming into the nest she flew 
perpendicularly down from high up in the air, 
apparently to baffle pursuit by enemies. 
The Attraction of Red. 
Humming-birds are greatly attracted by 
orange-blossom, and by the red flowers of the 
Bois Immortel. A friend, whose early home was 
in California, tells me that she used often to 
read in the garden before breakfast, and that 
then, if the cover of her book happened to be 
red, a Humming-bird was sure to come and 
perch upon it. 
They are fond of water, and bathe from a 
twig overhanging a stream, dipping their bodies 
and fluttering their wings in order to get well 
sprinkled. 
They will dart after insects on the wing, and 
indeed, they themselves fly so much like insects 
that the Indians believe that Humming-birds and 
moths are transmutable one into the other. At 
any rate, the resemblance between the two is so 
extraordinary that even experienced naturalists 
have shot the moth, mistaking it for a Hum¬ 
ming-bird. 
Two Favourite Little Finches. 
* From Photographs bv Mr. E. O. Page. 
The Orange-Cheeked Waxbill. The Crimson-Winged Finch. 
