HUMMING-BIRD. See TROCHILUS, (Encycl.) We have the following pleasing account of this little animal in professor Kalm's Travels into America. The description applies to the trochilus colubris †. "Its plumage is most beautifully coloured, most of its feathers being green, some grey, and others forming a shining red ring round its neck; the tail glows with fine feathers, changing from green into a brasa colour. These birds come here (Pennsylvania) in spring, about the time when it begins to grow very warm, and make their nests in summer; but towards autumn, they retreat again into the more southern countries of America. They subsist barely upon the nectar, or sweet juice of flowers, contained in that part which botanists call the nectarium, and which they suck up with their long bills. Of all the flowers, they like those most which have a long tube; and they are observed to flutter chiefly about the impatiens noli tangere, and the monarda with crimson flowers. An inhabitant of the country is sure to have a number of these beautiful and agreeable little birds before his windows all the summer long, if he takes care to plant a bed with all sorts of fine flowers under them. The flowers of the above-mentioned monarda grow verticillated, that is, at different distances they surround the stalk, as the flowers of our mint (mentha), bastard hemp (galeopsis), mother-wort (leonurus), and dead nettle (lamium). It is therefore diverting to see them putting their bills into every flower in the circle. As soon as they have sucked the juice of one flower, they flutter to the next. One that has not seen them would hardly believe in how short a space of time they have had their tongues in all the flowers of a plant, which when large, and with a long tube, the little bird, by putting its head into them, looks as if it crept with half its body into them.
During their sucking the juice out of the flowers, they never settle on it, but flutter continually like bees, bend their feet backwards, and move their wings so quick, that they are hardly visible. During this fluttering, they make a humming like bees, or like that which is occasioned by the turning of a little wheel. After they have thus, without resting, fluttered for a while, they fly to a neighbouring tree or post, and resume their vigour again. They then return.
Humming, turn to their humming and sucking. When several of
Hunter.
them were on the same bed, there was always a violent combat between them, in meeting each other at the same flower (for envy was likewise predominant amongst these little creatures), and they attacked with such impetuosity, that it would seem as if the strongest would pierce its antagonist through and through with its long bill. During the fight, they seem to stand in the air, keeping themselves up by the incredibly swift motion of their wings. When the windows towards the garden are open, they pursue each other into the rooms, fight a little, and flutter away again. Sometimes they come to a flower which is withering, and has no more juice in it; they then, in a fit of anger, pluck it off and throw it on the ground, that it may not mislead them for the future. If a garden contains a great number of these little birds, they are seen to pluck off the flowers in such quantities, that the ground is quite covered with them, and it seems as if this proceeded from a motion of envy.
“Commonly you hear no other sound than their humming; but when they fly against each other in the air, they make a chirping noise like a sparrow or chicken. They are so small, that one would easily mistake them for great humble-bees or butterflies; and their flight resembles that of the former, and is incredibly swift. They have never been observed to feed on insects or fruit; the nectar of flowers seems therefore to be their only food. Several people have caught some humming-birds, on account of their singular beauty, and have put them into cages, where they died for want of a proper food. However, Mr Barram has kept a couple of them for several weeks together, by feeding them with water in which sugar had been dissolved; and I am of opinion, that it would not be difficult to keep them all winter in a hot-house.
“The humming-bird always builds its nest in the middle of a branch of a tree; and it is so small, that it cannot be seen from the ground, but he who intends to see it must get up to the branch. For this reason it is looked upon as a great rarity if a nest is accidentally found, especially as the trees in summer have so thick a foliage. The nest is quite round, and consists in the inside of a brownish and quite soft down, which seems to have been collected from the leaves of the great mullein or verbascum thapsus, which are often found covered with a soft wool of this colour, and the plant is plentiful here: other materials, however, are often used, as flax, hemp, moss, hair, or such like soft substances. The outside of the nest has a coating of green moss, such as is common on old pales, or enclosures, and on trees; the inner diameter of the nest is hardly a geometrical inch at the top, and its depth half an inch; they are said to lay two eggs, each of the size of a pea.”