Humming-Birds

There is every reason to believe that this species is spread over all the temperate regions of Columbia and Ecuador: I have frequently seen it in collections from Bogota, and I have had it sent direct from Quito by Professor Jameson, who gives 6000 feet as the altitude at which his specimen was procured; it is a beautiful representative in those regions of the P. eremita and P. pygmea of Brazil: it differs from them in its larger size, in the total absence of any crescentic black mark on the chest, and in having the throat clouded with dark grey instead of buff; the two central tail-feathers are also tipped with greyish white instead of buff, and the shafts of eremita and pygmæa are buff, while in the present species they are black.

My own collection contains numerous examples, as well as the two nests figured on the accompanying Plate: although these nests are alike in form, the materials of which they are constructed are somewhat dissimilar; one being made of a species of green moss laced together with cobwebs, while the other is composed of a pale brown silky substance, here and there studded with pieces of green moss.

Head, upper surface, and wing-coverts bronzy brown; upper tail-coverts rufous; ear-coverts blackish brown; wings purple-brown; base of tail dark brown, the apical third of the two central feathers dark grey tipped with white; the apical third of the next feather on each side grey on the inner web, buff on the outer web and tipped with white; the three lateral feathers on each side tipped with buff; under surface sandy buff, with a wash of dull grey down the chin and a crescent of black across the breast; upper mandible black; basal two-thirds of the under mandible yellow, apical third blackish brown; feet yellow.

The figures are of the natural size.

References

Phaëthorms griseogularis, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., March 25, 1851.

Phæthornis griseogularis

References

More hummingbirds in the genus Pygmornis

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