BROAD-TAILED HUMMINGBIRD 389 



Major Bendire (1895) writes: "On the first arrival of this species 

 in the spring it is comparatively common in the lower foothills and 

 valleys, and unquestionably breeds here. By the time the young are 

 large enough to leave the nest the majority of the flowers have ceased 

 blooming, and as the country begins to dry up more and more these 

 Hummingbirds retire to higher altitudes in the mountain parks, 

 where everything is now as green and bright looking as it was in the 

 lower valleys two or three months earlier. Here they raise their 

 second broods under nearly similar conditions as the first ; the former 

 are by this time well able to take care of themselves and can be seen 

 frolicking about everywhere." 



GourtsMi). — Dr. Linsdale (1938) watched two hummers of this 

 species on June 5, 1932, "that were definitely distinguished as a male 

 and female which were going through mating antics. At first both 

 were in flight together. Then the male flew up into the air about 30 

 feet and made a U-shaped dive. Next, both birds flew up in the air 

 for about 90 feet, one lower than the other by 4 or 5 feet, and they 

 came down at the same time. One flew off to the side but returned 

 immediately. Both flew up and repeated the dive. Then the male 

 hovered for half a minute, over birches and cottonwoods along the 

 stream, until the female disappeared. No noise was made by the 

 male bird while hovering." 



Alexander F. Skutch sends me the following note on the courtship 

 of the Guatemalan race of this species: "It was during the brightest, 

 warmest hours of the day that I saw the broad-tailed hummingbirds 

 rising and falling above the brushy growth on the sunny mountain- 

 side where the salvias bloomed. One morning I watched a female as 

 she perched within 2 feet of the ground in a little thicket where there 

 was an abundance of flowers. Presently a male of her kind ap- 

 peared; and she rose a few inches into the air and hovered with her 

 bill pointed toward him, while he poised motionless on beating wings 

 in front of and a little above her, displaying his brilliant red gorget 

 before her eyes. Then of a sudden he rose almost vertically 30 or 

 40 feet into the air, whence he dropped straight downward and shot 

 through the edge of the thicket directly in front of the female, who 

 meanwhile had resumed her perch. Once past her, he inclined his 

 course slightly upward and darted away over the mountainside." 



Nesting. — Major Bendire (1895) makes the following general 

 statement about the nests of the broad-tailed hummingbird : 



Nests from different localities vary considerably in make-up as well as in 

 size. Nests saddled on good-sized limbs, like those found in the mountains of 

 Colorado, are occasionally almost as large again as others placed on small 

 twigs. One now before mo, from the Ralph collection, taken by Mr. William 

 G. Smith, at Pinewood, Colorado, on June 23, 1892, measures 2 inches in outer 



