Generic characters.
Male.—Bill straight and rather longer than the head; wings moderately long and somewhat rounded; tail deeply forked; the outer tail-feather on each side terminating in a spatule; feet small; tarsi thickly clothed; hind toe and nail shorter than the middle toe and nail; throat luminous.
Female.—Unadorned and destitute of spatules.
Spathura Underwoodi
Habitat: The neighbourhood of Bogota, on the Andes, and the hilly portion of eastern Venezuela
Plate 162
Spathura Underwoodi
White-booted Racket-tail
In his ‘Trochilinarum Enumeratio’ Dr. Reichenbach has figured a white-booted Racket-tail under the name of Steganura remigera, which, after a careful examination of the type specimen, I have no doubt is identical with this species, I have therefore placed that name among its synonyms.
Spathura melananthera (Jard.)
Habitat: Ecuador
Plate 163
Spathura melananthera
Ecuadorian Racket-tail
Mr. Fraser, who procured specimens of S. melananthera at Pallatanga and Nanegal in Ecuador, states that its feet are “white.”
Spathura rufocaligata (Gould)
Habitat: La Paz in Bolivia
Plate 165
Spathura rufocaligata
Red-booted Racket-tail
The Trochilus Addæ of M. Bourcier is considered to be identical either with the S. Peruana or the present bird; in all probability it was applied to the latter; and if this should prove to be the case, the term Addæ, having been proposed prior to that of rufocaligata, should be adopted for this species.
Featuring all 422 illustrated species from John Gould’s A Monograph of the Trochilidæ, or Family of Humming-Birds arranged by color.
Humming-Birds
