TROCHILIDAE 437 



Colombia, the " Warrior " or " Helmet-crest," is dark green, with 

 blackisli sides to the head, a black and white crest, a green and 

 white chin margined with black, a white beard, a greyish abdo- 

 men, and purplish and white lateral rectrices. The female lacks 

 the elongated feathers, and has white under parts spotted with 

 dusky. Rhampliomicron lietcropoyon of Colombia, one of the 

 sharp-beaked " Thornbills," is greenish-bronze, with browner tail 

 and abdomen, and a long amethystine beard surrounded by 

 bronzy -black. R. microrhyncltmn, having rich purple upper 

 parts and a lustrous green throat, extends to Ecuador, while 

 other members of the genus range to Bolivia. The hens are 

 comparatively dull. Opidhoprora curyptera of Colombia, which 

 is bronzy-green with a little rufous and w^hite below, has an 

 upcurved l:)ill, like Acocettula. l\ita(jona fjigns, the largest 

 Humming-bird known, inhabits the Andes from Ecuador to Chili , 

 it is greenish-brown, with white rump and rufous under parts. In 

 Aglaractis, of the Andes from Colombia to Bolivia, the coloration 

 is brown, dark buff, or black, with glittering ametliystine or 

 green lower back, and a white or buff pectoral tuft. The chief 

 marvel of the Family is, however, Lodclir/esia mirahilis, originally 

 found in Xorthern Peru by a Ijotanist named Matthews, and re- 

 discovered l)y M. Stolzmann ^ in almost the same locality. It is 

 shining bronzy-green, with whitish under parts surrounding a 

 1 >lack central area ; the head and its crest are lustrous cobalt-blue, 

 the throat is emerald-green with l)lack margin, the metatarsi are 

 covered with white feathers. The two lateral rectrices are extra- 

 ordinarily prolonged, and resemble black wires with large steel- 

 blue terminal discs ; the shafts normally cross each other at their 

 bases and again near their tips, but the discs are frequently brought 

 together in flight, or extended horizontally, if not turned above the 

 head. The median tail-feathers are much reduced. Tlie female 

 is green, varied with wdiite below ; the external pair of steel-blue 

 lateral rectrices shewing small spatiiles. Crplialolepis delnlandi, 

 of South-East Brazil, is bronzy-green aliove, and fine violet-blue 

 bordered with grey below, while the long glittering green crest 

 terminates in a single black plume. The crestless hen is grey 

 below. Erioriiniiis, of the Andes from Colombia and Venezuela 

 to Bolivia, shares with FdnupJltes and the spatulate- tailed 

 Spcdliura of the same regions the characteristic of possessing 



' Fur the habits, st-i- Tac-xauowski and Stolziiiaiiii, P.Z.S. 1881, pp. 827-8:31. 



