The hummingbirds in this case were purchased by Horatio Gates Warner from a French naturalist on the isthmus of Panama in 1850.  Warner, a lawyer in Rochester, New York, was on his way home from Sacramento, California, when he encountered the naturalist and his exquisite collection of hummingbirds packed in a candy box.

Warner's brother had been working in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, surveying the area for an overland railroad, when he died in an ambush that left nine arrows in his body.  He left behind an estate in Sacramento, including properties obtained with funds from surveying the property of John Sutter's Mill.  Warner had just finished settling his brother's estate, and decided to purchase the hummingbirds using money received from sale of the properties.

Warner and his baggage made it through heavy storms, tropical downpours, hordes of mosquitoes, and even shipboard thieves before arriving in New York City.  Warner left the hummingbirds with John G. Bell, a noted taxidermist who also worked with John James Audubon.

In 1857, the hummingbirds, complete with mahogany parlor case, were shipped to Rochester where they became a fixture in the Warner home.  In 1963, John Warner Brown, Horatio Warner's great-grandson, gave the collection to the Lab of Ornithology.  They were carefully restored in 1988 and are now a permanent exhibit at the Lab.

Each of the 98 specimens mounted in the case is labeled with a number that corresponds to a species listed on a nearby key-come see them all!