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ON A COLLECTION OF HUMMING-BIRDS FEOM ECUADOR 



AND MEXICO. 



By ERNST AND GL. HARTERT. 

 (PI. IV.) 



IN the summer of 1893 the Triug Museum received the most heautiful collection 

 of Humming-Birds that ever reached Europe. They were collected by 

 Mr. 0. T. Baron, mostly in Ecuador, and partly in Mexico and California. 



The most remarkable character of this collection is their preservation, for they 

 are all stuffed />w« the flesh in the most lifelike positions, as they were observed 

 by the collector, who shot and stuffed them all himself. They surpass in beauty 

 everything we have ever seen of Humming-birds. 



As will become obvious from onr remarks, the collection — besides its external 

 beauty — contains some species of great scientific interest, and even unknown 

 forms. 



The collection was accompanied by a number of nests and eggs, and by 

 valuable notes of the collector — which, however, we sh(rald have liked more 

 detailed and more complete, as Mr. Baron's experience must have unveiled to 

 him many unrecorded facts of the life-history of the beauteous daylight-stars of 

 the Andes. 



In our arrangement of the species represented in this collection we have 

 followed the standard work of Mr. Osbert Salvin in the Catalogue, of Birds, 

 vol. xvi., but we must cimfess that this is merely done for the sake of con- 

 venience of our readers and ourselves, and that— without presuming to criticise 

 Mr. Salvin's arrangement of this very difficult grou]) — we do not consider the 

 divisions made according to the presence or absence of serrations on the sheath 

 of the maxilla a very fortunate step, especially as between the sections with the 

 serrate tomia and with the smooth tomia a great number of intermediate forms 

 (Trochili iiUermeilii) had to be placed. 



I. FRO M E ( : U A D R. 



1. Heliothrix auritus (Gm.). 

 A male and a female from Zamora, on the east side of the Andes, shot on 

 May Kith and in June. 



v;. Heliothrix barroti (Bourc). 

 West of the Andes, on the Rio Pescado, near Naranjal; shot on February 18th. 

 Also seen there in March and April. 



3. Schistes geofiroyi (Bonrc. & Muls.). 

 A tine group collected at Rio Negro Hacienda, on the Rio Pastassa, east of the 

 Andes, in the month of August, when they were in good plumage. 



4. Schistes albogiilaris (Jonkl. 

 Two specimens with the white throat iu poor plumage, both marked " female," 

 shot at Gualaquiza, Ecuador, at an elevation of 4000 feet. 



