AliLEN'S HUMMINGBIRD 411 



SELASPHORUS ALLEN! Henshaw 



ALLEN'S HUMMINGBIRD 



Plates 68, 69 



HABITS 



This is another very brilliant hummingbird, which is closely re- 

 lated to the rufous hummingbird, and much like it in appearance 

 and behavior. It seems to be confined, in the breeding season at 

 least, to the coastal district of California, from Humboldt County to 

 Ventura County and the Santa Barbara Islands. It may possibly be 

 found breeding in Oregon, and there are two authentic records of its 

 occurrence in Washington. There was formerly a specimen in the 

 United States National Museum, which has since been destroyed, that 

 was collected at Fort Steilacoom, on April 26, 1856, and was identi- 

 fied by both Henshaw and Ridgway. S. F. Rathbun collected an 

 adult male near Seattle on May 27, 1894, which is apparently the 

 only Washington specimen in existence ; he tells me that this specimen 

 is now in the State Museum, at the University of Washington, in 

 Seattle. Dr. Tracy I. Storer (1921) has made a careful study of all 

 other records north of California and reports that no others are 

 authentic. 



Courtship. — Robert S. Woods (1927b) says on this subject : "Allen's 

 Hummingbird flies rather slowly back and forth along a path such 

 as would be described by a giant pendulum, with a sort of lateral 

 writhing movement of the body and extended tail and a vibratory 

 metallic noise, but without vocal sound. Again it will poise itself 

 close in front of another bird and rapidly shuttle to and fro sidewise 

 through a space of perhaps a foot or two." 



Frank N. Bassett (1921) gives a somewhat different and more 

 elaborate account of it, as follows : 



On the afternoon of April 16, 1920, I was walking through the hUls back of 

 the Claremont Club golf links when I was brought to a halt by a rather pro- 

 longed buzzing sound, very penetrating and metallic in quality, somewhat similar 

 to the sound produced by drawing a fine-grained file over the edge of a piece of 

 sheet steel with a sudden jerk. Looking in the direction of the sound I saw 

 poised in the air about twenty feet from tlie ground, a male Allen Hummingbird 

 {Selasphorus alleni), uttering his commonly heard mouse-like squeaks. Then 

 followed the performance of the nuptial flight, similar to that of the Anna 

 Hummingbird, though the path described in the air was somewhat different. He 

 "rocked" back and forth over the female, vrhich was perched on a twig of a 

 low poison oak (Rliiis diversilo'ba) , describing a semi-circle about twenty-five feet 

 in. diameter. There was a pause at each end of the arc, and before the pause he 

 spread his tail and shook his whole body so violently that I wondered how his 

 feathers remained fast. During this time he continued uttering the character- 

 istic squeaks. After several of these semi-circles were described he began his 



