Page:Natural History, Birds.djvu/81

68 familiar as to suck from a flower held in the hand, or even to take sugar from the lips, hovering in front of the mouth, or clinging with its tiny feet to the face of the person who feeds it. It will very readily learn to suck from a cup of sugar and water placed in the room, and will amuse itself all day in capturing minute flies, on the wing. We have had half a dozen, or more, in this state of confiding familiarity for several weeks, in the West Indies.

The nests of the Humming-birds are exquisite specimens of the constructive art. Those of the species now before us, are composed ordinarily of the fine down of the silk-cotton tree (Bombax), formed into a neat and compact cup. On the outside it is generally bound round in different directions with spider's web, made to adhere by a viscous saliva, secreted by large glands in the mouth of the bird. Little fragments of papery lichen are stuck here and there about the outside, and bound down with web. In this structure, which is usually placed upon a horizontal twig, the twig passing the substance of the bottom, two oval eggs are laid, of the purest and most delicate whiteness, which commonly produce a male and a female.

The Humming-birds of the West Indies, breed all the year round; but in January and June, nests are found in greatest abundance. The young are easily reared by hand, and will readily learn to take syrup from the end of a quill; gnats, ants, and other small insects caught and put into the fluid, and then given to the young bird upon the point of the quill, will add to the probability of success.