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FURTHEE NOTES ON HUMMING-BIRDS. 



By ERNST HARTERT. 



Spathura underwoodi (Lesson). 



WHEN examiiiinjj tlio series of these birds in Mr. Rothschild's wonderfully 

 growing collection of Trochilklne, I was at once strnck by a generally 

 very well-marked difference in the coloration o{ i\\Q femnlci from the mountains 

 of Venezuela and those from ( 'olombia. From Venezuela we have a fine series, 

 collected in the Andes near Merida, at elevations of from 2100 to 4000 metres, by 

 Messrs. Salomon Bricefio Gabald<'>n k Sons, and from C'olombia a number of Bogota 

 skins. The latter are to be regarded as typical mulrrwoodi. Their nndersnrface is 

 somewhat equally spotted with green, these spots being larger and closer together 

 along the sides of the neck and body, somewhat less frequent along the middle, and 

 almost or quite absent from the upper part of the throat near the chin. In all the 

 adult females from Veneznela, however, the throat and chest are white without 

 spots, or only with a few very minute ones, so tliat there is a very marked contrast 

 between the throat and abdomen. Yonng wrt/cs are darker below than /?//(r///',s. I 

 cannot find any difference between the males from the two countries, except that the 

 bills of those from Bogota are only from 11 v) to 12 mm. long, while they are abont 

 13 mm. long in those from Merida, the e.xposed part of the cnlmen only being 

 measured. Small as these differences are, they are worthy of notice, and I propose 

 the name of 



Spathura underwoodi bricenoi subsp. nov. 



for the Merida form. 



There has been some uncertainty abont the specific name underwoodi, as Lesson, 

 having before him an unartistic drawing only, figured and described the male with a 

 white band across the rnmp. This character, however, does not exist in the types in 

 the Loddiges Collection, and is not to be found in any species of the genus. There 

 is, therefore, no reason to reject the name underwoodi. 



Spathura jjertiana can only be subspecifically related to .S'. solstitinlis, or is not 

 even a subspecies, the only difference apparently being the deep blue-black outer web 

 of the lateral rectrices. The distribution of S. peruana and S. solstifialis— i{ they 

 are different forms — is not sufficiently clear. 



Genus ERIOCNEMIS. 



I cannot see the necessity of splitting this genus np into several ill-defined 

 gronps, and I shall therefore accept it in the same sense as Salvin did in the Catalogue 

 of Birds. 



Baron has discovered that {\\e female of/.', russata differs from the male, which 

 has the tibial tufts partly white, partly cinnamon, in having the tibial tufts quite 

 white, the wing shorter, the bill longer. This being an established fact (see Nov 

 ZooL. Vol. n. p. 00), there is no longer any reason to regard A", squamata and 



