FAMILY TROCHILIDAE 289 



sudden motion they disappear. When the rays of the rising sun fill 

 the air the birds retreat to the shade of the forest. Here they may 

 visit flowers, often high in the tree crown, or may glean over leaves 

 and branches. The stomachs of two that I examined were crammed 

 with small ants. Others have had the throat filled with bits of tiny 

 diptera and small winged hymenoptera. 



Females are retiring and are seldom identified, as their mixed 

 pattern of markings shows little to distinguish them in the brief 

 views that they offer. 



Thomas Gilliard found a nest with 2 eggs on Barro Colorado 

 Island on January 10, 1937. In February I saw full grown young 

 around Bahia Almirante in Bocas del Toro. 



The white-necked Jacobin has a broad range that extends from 

 southern Mexico through Central America to Bolivia and central 

 Brazil, and east through Venezuela and the Guianas, including 

 Trinidad. In this vast area the differences found are interpreted as 

 individual. Those living on Tobago, which are larger in wing and 

 tail, and slightly so in bill, are recognized as a subspecies F. m. 

 flabellifera (Gould) , confined to that island. 



A. Ruschi (Bol. Mus. Biol. Prof. Mello-Leitao, Biol. no. 6, 1949, 

 pp. 1-2) describes the nest as cup shaped, with eggs that measure 

 15x10 mm. 



COLIBRI DELPHINAE DELPHINAE (Lesson): Brown Violet-ear, 

 Colibri Orejiviolaceo Moreno 



Ornismya Delphinae Lesson, Rev. Zool., vol. 2, February 1839, p. 44. (Bogota, 

 Colombia.) 



Brown, of medium size ; with the violet ear patch that marks this 

 genus. 



Description. — Length 112-120 mm. Adult (sexes alike), above 

 grayish brown to olive, with a slight gloss of bronze ; upper tail 

 coverts basally dull black ; rump and upper tail coverts tipped with 

 cinnamon-buff to dull white ; tail greenish olive with a distal band of 

 dull black and a cinnamon-buff tip, the whole with a sheen of bronze ; 

 wings dusky with a purple sheen ; loral and malar region cinnamon 

 to dull white, the latter forming an indefinite stripe ; a rather broad 

 stripe of violet-blue on the cheeks; an irregular patch of metallic 

 green, in some bluish on lower part, on the throat; under parts dull 

 grayish brown, some with paler edgings that form indefinite streaks, 

 others plain; under tail coverts cinnamon, with a central spot of 

 grayish brown ; hidden femoral tufts dull white to cinnamon. 



