ECUADOR 227 
but the insides were dark and wonderful breeding-places for 
vermin. 
My blow-gun man soon came in with an assortment of mar- 
velous humming-birds, including a Temminck’s Sapphire-wing, 
which reminded one of an enormous butterfly, with its shining 
deep blue wings and silent flight. The body was metallic green 
and the total length six and three-quarter inches. Another species 
of humming-bird, the Shining Sunbeam, was very common 
around Papallacta and was interesting to me because of the 
iridescent plumage, showing only when viewed from behind. 
Normally the back is a velvety blackish-brown but viewed from 
behind it lights up into purplish-crimson, with a coppery hue on 
the lower back and metallic green on the rump. 
One of the most gorgeous species—the Comte de Paris Hum- 
ming-bird—was locally common, and it had an affinity for some 
crimson tubular flowers with yellow tips. These grew in great 
clusters but only in a few spots, and it was here that I found the 
Comtes de Paris plentiful, though elsewhere none were to be 
seen. The coloring of these birds was rather extraordinary, the 
head being velvety black, the forehead metallic green, the under 
parts shining green, with a metallic blue throat, the secondaries 
buff, making a conspicuous patch in the wing, and the upper parts 
brownish-black glossed with green. They are medium-sized birds 
with long straight bills, and in captivity they seem to have a con- 
stant fear of one another. When I had several together in a large 
cage they were too busy watching every movement to seize an 
occasion to take a few sips of nectar from one of the feeding- 
bottles. I never once saw anything in the nature of an attack, but 
they all seemed to live in constant anticipation of one, and it was 
only necessary for one bird to hover to cause the rest to dive into 
corners on the floor, with their hearts beating rapidly as if the 
enemy were about to drop bombs. They were so stupid in this 
respect that I was forced to cage them singly. 
While at Papallacta a trader showed me five shrunken human 
heads he was offering for sale. He had got them, so he said, from 
the River Napo district some distance to the southeast. They were 
perfect examples showing no distortion of the features, yet no 
