452 BULLETIN 17 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



HYLOCHARIS LEUCOTIS LEUCOTIS (Vieillot) 



WHITE-EARED HUMMINGBIRD 

 Plvte 73 



HABITS 

 CONTEIBTJTED BY ALEXANDER F. SkUTCH 



The white-eared hummingbird is a common and widespread species 

 of northern Central America and Mexico, occurring in the United 

 States only in southern Arizona, where it was first discovered in the 

 Chiricahua Mountains by Dr. A. K. Fisher (1894). Near the south- 

 ern extremity of its range, in Guatemala, it is a bird of the highlands 

 fomid chiefly at elevations between 4,000 and 9,000 feet, although in 

 favorable localities it may extend upward to 11,000 feet above sea 

 level. Here its favorite haunts are the more open woods of oak, 

 pine, and alder and the clearings and bushy mountainsides where 

 there is a profusion of flowering shrubs. Over much of the Guate- 

 malan highlands, at the altitudes it prefers, it is one of the most 

 abundant and familiar hummingbirds of the cultivated areas and the 

 flower gardens, but it is rarely seen in the darker and more humid 

 forests and almost never in the heavy cypress forests of the mountain- 

 tops. In the southern part of its range it is resident at all seasons, 

 or at most performs short altitudinal migrations occasioned by the 

 local abundance of flowers. But in Arizona, according to Oberholser 

 (1925), the species is migratory, arriving probably in April and re- 

 maining until August or possibly September, although definite dates 

 of arrival and departure are lacking. It is said to winter as far 

 north as the Valley of Mexico and the State of Colima. 



In El Salvador and Nicaragua the species is represented by the 

 race -pygmaea, which in the former country, according to Dickey 

 and van Eossem (1938), ranges between 3,500 and 8,000 feet above 

 sea level, dwelling in the undergrowth of the oak forests and in 

 various sorts of scrubby growth. 



GourtsMp. — In the highlands of western Guatemala, the rainy sea- 

 son normally extends from the middle of May to the middle of 

 October. In November and December, the first months of clear, 

 sunny weather, there is a greater profusion of bright, conspicuous 

 blossoms than at any other period of the year. Hummingbirds of 

 all kinds nest during this flowery season, despite frequent cold, biting 

 winds, and the frosts that from November to the end of March form 

 almost nightly on open fields above 7,500 feet. By the end of Janu- 

 ary blossoms have become far fewer as a result of continued dryness 

 and frosts increasingly severe, and the nesting season of the hum- 

 mingbirds is drawing to a close. During the period between the 



