In proceeding next to the genus Orthorhynchus, composed of birds ornamented with glittering green and blue crests, I do not insist that they have any direct affinity with the last, nor are they intimately allied to the members of the succeeding one: a more isolated form, in fact, is not to be found among the Trochilidæ. Only two species have been recorded by previous writers; but specimens of a third are contained both in the Loddigesian and my own collections: I allude to the bird here described under the name of Orthorhynchus ornatus.
All the members of the genus Orthorhyncnus are confined to the West India Islands; but our present knowledge of them does not admit of my stating positively the extent of the range of each species; this is a point which requires further investigation. The females differ from the males in being destitute of the glittering crown.
Orthorhynchus christatus
Habitat: Barbadoes, and St. Vincent
Plate 205
Orthorhynchus christatus
Blue-Crest
The Rev. Lansdown Guilding states that this species “sometimes deviates from its usual habits. In general it is remarkably wild, and soon disturbed. I once, however, saw a pair of these species almost domesticated, in the house of a gentleman whose kindness and humanity had brought round him many a lizard and winged pet. They built for many years on the chain of the lamp suspended over the dinner-table; and here they educated several broods, in a room occupied hourly by the family. I have been seated with a large party at the table when the parent bird has entered, and, passing along the faces of the visitors, displaying his glorious crest, has ascended to the young without alarm or molestation.”—Loudon’s Mag. Nat. Hist. vol. v. p. 570.
Orthorhynchus ornatus (Gould)
Habitat: One of the Windward Islands ; but which of them, is unknown
Plate 206
Orthorhynchus ornatus
Green and Blue Crest
This species bears a general resemblance to the O. cristatus, but differs from that bird in being of a somewhat smaller size, and in having the basal two-thirds of the crest glittering green and the tip only blue; the crest is also longer and more elegant in form than that of O. cristatus or O. exilis. With the latter it never can be confounded, while the former may always be distinguished from it by the truncate form of the green portion of its crest. It is just possible that the birds represented on the 31st and 32nd plates of Lesson’s ‘Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux-mouches’ may have reference to this bird.
Orthorhynchus exilis
Habitat: The Islands of Martinique, Nevis, St. Thomas, and St. Croix
Plate 207
Orthorhynchus exilis
Gilt-Crest
“After a careful examination of skins procured from St. Croix and St. Thomas,” says Mr. Alfred Newton, “we refer them to the above-named species, though one of a male presents a slightly different appearance from the ordinary type, in having a narrow blue edging to the otherwise golden-green crest, and thus exhibiting an affinity to the closely-allied Blue-crest (O. cristatus) from St. Vincent and Barbadoes. The present bird has, we believe, hitherto been known only from Martinique and Nevis.
“I shot a female of this species at Southgate farm on the north shore of the eastern end of the Island of St. Croix, where much of the land, being out of cultivation, is chiefly covered with Casha bushes, interspersed with Manchioneel along the coast. I have been told that a Humming-Bird smaller than the ordinary one, and therefore probably of this species, has been seen in other localities; but it must be very uncommon. Of its habits I know nothing.”—Ibis, vol. i. p. 141.
Featuring all 422 illustrated species from John Gould’s A Monograph of the Trochilidæ, or Family of Humming-Birds arranged by color.
Humming-Birds