It is a well-known fact that although humming-birds are easily tamed, they cannot be preserved long in captivity, even in their own country, when fed only on syrup. Audubon states, that when thus fed they only live a month or two and die apparently starved; while if kept in a room whose open windows are covered with a fine net, so as to allow small insects to enter, they have been kept for a whole year without any ill-effects. Another writer, Mr. Webber, captured and tamed a number of the Ruby-throat in the United States. He found that when fed for three weeks on syrup they drooped, but after being let free for a day or two they would return to the open cage for more of the syrup. Some which had been thus tamed and set free, returned the following year, and at once flew straight to the remembered little cup of sweets. Mr. Gosse in Jamaica also kept some in captivity, and found the necessity of giving them insect food; and he remarks that they were very fond of a small ant that swarmed on the syrup with which they were fed. It is strange that, with all this previous experience and information, those who have attempted to bring live humming-birds to this country have fed them exclusively on syrup; and the weakness produced by this insufficient food has no doubt been the chief cause of their death on, or very soon after, arrival. A box of ants would not be difficult to bring as food for them; but even finely-chopped meat or yolk of egg would probably serve, in the absence of insects, to supply the necessary proportion of animal food. _Nests._--The nests of the humming-birds are, as might be expected, beautiful objects, some being no larger inside than the half of a walnut-shell. These small cup-shaped nests are often placed in the fork of a branch, and the outside is sometimes beautifully decorated with pieces of lichen, the body of the nest being formed of cottony substances and the inside lined with the finest and most silky fibres. Others suspend their nests to creepers hanging over water, or even over the sea; and the Pichincha humming-bird once attached its nest to a straw-rope hanging from the roof of a shed. Others again build nests of a hammock-form attached to the face of rocks by spiders’ web; while the little forest-haunting species fasten their nests to the points or to the under-sides of palm-leaves or other suitable foliage. They lay only one or two white eggs.