TEXAS BLUE-THROATED HUMMINGBIRD 331 



to central and southern Mexico from Michoacan and Oaxaca north- 

 ward to the Chisos Mountains in western Texas. It would seem as 

 if this race might more properly be called the Mexican blue-throated 

 hummingbird, as most of its range is in Mexico; furthermore the 

 birds from the Chisos Mountains do not seem to be quite typical of 

 the southern race; Dr. Oberholser (1918) remarks that these birds 

 "show in some specimens a tendency toward typical Cyanolaemus 

 clemenciae chmenciae, but are decidedly referable to Cyanolaemus 

 clemenciae hessophilus.'''' On the other hand, Van Tyne and Sutton 

 (1937) refer the Chisos Mountains birds to the Mexican race, Lam- 

 pomis clemenciae clemenciae. 



Typical clemenciae, the subject of this sketch, has a somewhat 

 longer bill, darker under parts, a slightly more brilliant blue throat, 

 and more extensive as well as brighter green on the upper parts and 

 flanks, than the Arizona bird. 



Nesting. — Dr. E. W. Nelson wrote to Major Bendire (1895) as 

 follows : 



Coeligena clemenciae is a sparingly distributed summer resident of all the 

 mountain regions of south central Mexico, between 7,500 and 12,000 feet. They 

 are rather quiet birds, often found perched on the tips of large maguey leaves. 

 In the forests of pines of the higher slopes they are not often seen except as 

 they dash by among the trees. On the 9th of September, 1893, a nest con- 

 taining two eggs was found at an altitude of 11,500 feet on the north slope of 

 the volcano of Toluca, in the State of Mexico. At this time the nights had 

 already become quite frosty here. The nest was built in the fork of a small 

 shrub, growing out of the face of a cliff about 30 feet above its base, on the 

 side of a canyon, in the pine and fir forest. The nest was discovered by seeing 

 the parent approach its vicinity. She flew quietly close up to the nest, and 

 then, turning so that she faced out from the cliff and away from the nest, 

 she moved backward several inches and settled lightly on the eggs. She was 

 easily alarmed, darting away through the forest, and was not seen again. The 

 nest was nearly inaccessible, and one egg was thrown out and broken in secur- 

 ing it. 



Major Bendire (1895) says of the nest: 



This nest, No. 26332, United States National Museum collection, now before 

 me, is a handsome and rather bulky structure, which is apparently composed 

 entirely of fine mosses, the whole evenly quilted together into a smooth, homo- 

 geneous mass, and bound firmly together with silk from cocoons and spiders' 

 webs. It is saddled in a tripronged fork of a small twig, the three stems being 

 incorporated in the walls of the nest, holding it firmly in position, the main 

 stem being only one-twelfth of an inch in diameter. It measures 2% inches 

 in outer diameter by 3 inches in depth ; the inner cup is 1^/4 inches in diameter 

 by three-fourths of an inch deep. The walls of the nest are three-fourths of 

 an inch thick, and the inner cup appears very small for the large size of the 

 nest. It looks like a warm and cozy structure, and it needs to be so. As the 

 eggs were only slightly incubated when found, the young would probably have 

 hatched by September 20, and would scarcely have been large enough to leave 

 the nest before October 12, by which time one might reasonably look for snow- 

 storms at such an altitude. There is but very little inner lining, not enough 



