380 



ZOOLOGY BIRDS. 



two adult males and another female. In talking with the lumbermen of 

 the neighborhood, I learned that the "large hummingbirds" had been 

 quite common earlier in the summer, but at that time they had nearly dis- 

 appeared, though the "smaller birds'' (S. platycercus) were still quite numer- 

 ous. I suppose that during the mating season they had made themselves more 

 conspicuous, and, indeed, had probably frequented the little valley in which 

 the cabins of these men were built in considerable numbers, but had retired, 

 each pair to some secluded spot deeper in the mountains, to rear their 

 young. 



A very beautiful nest was discovered, which, save in its large size, resem- 

 bles in its construction the best efforts of the little Eastern Ruby throat. It is 

 composed of mosses nicely woven Into an almost circular cup, the interior pos- 

 sessing a lining of the softest and downiest feathers, while the exterior is 

 elaborately covered with lichens, which are securely bound on by a network 

 of the finest silk from spiders' webs. Itwas saddled on the horizontal limb of 

 an alder, about twenty feet above the bed of a running mountain stream, in 

 a glen which was overarched and shadowed by several huge spruces, making 

 it one of the most shady and retired little nooks that could be imagined. The 

 two young which it contained had just been hatched, and the female was 

 returning to the nest when I caught sight of her, having probably 

 carried away the broken egg shells, fragments of which were still in the 

 nest. The dimensions of the nest are as follows: depth, externally, 1.50; 

 internally, 0.75 ; greatest external diameter, 2.25; internal diameter, 1.15. 



CIRCE LATIROSTRIS, Boure. 

 Circe Hummingbird. 



Circe latirostris, HENSHAW, Am. Sportsman, v, Feb. 20, 1875, 328. 



. SP. CHAR. Male. Head, all the upper parts, wing aud tail coverts, and under 

 surface of the body shining metallic green ; the under parts generally, save the sides, 

 with a tinge of blue; chin and throat sapphire-blue; tail indigo-blue; all the feathers 

 tipped with grayish-brown, the outer pair just perceptibly, but the amount increasing on 

 the inner ones. Under tail coverts dusky- white. Base of upper mandible reddish. 



