occupied only by them two, and was evidently courting his caresses. She would hop sideways along the perch by a series of little quick jumps, till she reached him, when she would gently peck his face, and then recede, hopping and shivering her wings, and presently approach again to perform the same actions. Now and then she would fly over him, and make as if she were about to perch on his back, and practise other little endearments; to which, however, I am sorry to say, he seemed most ungallantly indifferent, being, in fact, the dullest of the whole group. I expected to have them nidificate in the cage, and therefore affixed a very inviting twig of lime-tree to the cage wall, and threw in plenty of cotton, and perhaps should have succeeded, but for the carelessness of my servant. For he having incautiously left open the cage door, the female flew out and effected her escape. But all my hopes of success were soon to be quashed; for after they had been in cage but a week, they began to die, sometimes two in a day; and in another week, but a solitary individual was left, which soon followed the others. I vainly endeavoured to replace them, by sending to the mountain; for where the species was so numerous two months before, they were now (beginning of June) scarcely to be seen at all. The cause of the death of my caged captives, I conjecture to have been the want of insect food; that, notwithstanding their frequent sipping at the syrup, they were really starved to death. I was led to this conclusion, by having found, on dissecting those which died, that they were excessively meagre in flesh, and that the stomach, which ordinarily is as large as a pea, and distended with insects, was, in these, shrunken to a minute collapsed membrane, with difficulty distinguished. If I had an opportunity of trying the experiment again, with the advantage of this experience, I would proceed rather differently. I would have a very capacious cage, wired _on every side_, in the bottom of which a supply of decaying fruit, such as oranges or pines, should be constantly kept, but covered with wire that the birds might not defile their plumage. This, as I have proved, would attract immense numbers of minute flies, which, flitting to and fro in the cage, would probably afford sufficient sustenance to the birds in conjunction with the syrup. The birds, however, should be caged as short a time as possible before sailing, which might be early in May; and by a steamer, which calling at St. Thomas, Bermuda, and the Azores, large bunches of fresh flowers, and even herbage, might be obtained at short intervals on the voyage, with which, of course, a multitude of insects would be introduced. Thus, I still think, these lovely birds might be introduced into our conservatories and stoves, where there would be no difficulty in preserving them. Mr. Yarrell has suggested to me, that possibly young ones fed from the nest upon syrup alone, might be able to live without insect food.