Hummingbird WESTERN BIRDS 



California and northern New Mexico as a summer resi- 

 dent; as a migrant casually in Wyoming and Colorado. 



The male is scarcely three inches long and is a metallic 

 green above, under parts white, tinged on sides with 

 brown and green; tail rusty, but rufous at base, rounded 

 and much wider at tip. The gorget is a beautiful rose- 

 purple or violet, this brilliant coloring being in elongated 

 feathers which have white bases, giving the effect of 

 colored streaks, rather than a solid mass. The female 

 is similar, of course, lacking the gorget, and having the 

 rounded tail feathers greenish-gray at base with touch 

 of rufous; black banded, and tipped with white, except 

 middle pair, which are green, ending in dusky. Young 

 similar, but under parts washed with rufous, and throat 

 specked with dusky. 



These midgets are fond of high altitudes, going to 

 eight thousand feet in the mountains, where they build 

 their nests on pine cones, or dead limbs of these trees. 

 Dawson tells us that they also breed in much lower alti- 

 tudes, he finding a nest in Washington in "the burning 

 gorge of the Columbia at an altitude of only 600 feet." 



Those who do not go to the high mountain altitudes 

 may console themselves with the thought that they may 

 catch a glimpse of these tiny beauties as they travel 

 south on their journey to Mexico, where they winter. 



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