TKOCHILID^ — THE HUMMING-BIRDS. 455 



all the coast country of California, from the slopes of the Sierra to the 

 ocean. It was first taken in Mexico, and named in honor of Anna, Duchess 

 of Eivoli. Mr. ISTuttall was the fii-st of our own naturalists to take it within 

 our territory. He captured a female on its nest near Santa Barbara. This 

 was described and figured by Audubon. The nest was attached to a small 

 burnt twig of Photinia, and was small for the bird, being only 1.25 inches in 

 breadth. It was somewhat conic in shape, made of the down of willow cat- 

 kins, intermixed with their scales, and a few feathers, the latter forming the 

 lining. It had none of the neatness of the nests of our common species, 

 and was so rough on the outside that Mr. NuttaU waited several days in 

 expectation of its being completed, and found the female sitting on two 

 eggs when he caught her. Dr. Cooper, however, thinks this description 

 applies much better to the nest of T. alexandri, as all that he has seen of 

 this species are twice as large, and covered externally with lichens, even 

 when on branches not covered with these parasites. 



Dr. Gambell, in his paper published in 1846 on the birds of California, 

 describes this as a very abundant species, numbers of which pass the entire 

 winter in California. At such times he found them inhabiting sheltered 

 hillsides and plains, where, at all seasons, a few bushy plants were in flower 

 and furnished them with a scanty subsistence. In the latter part of Febru- 

 ary and during March they appeared in greater numbers. About the Pueblo 

 the vineyards and the gardens were their favorite resort, where they build a 

 delicate downy nest in small flowering bushes, or in a concealed spot about 

 a fence. In April and May they may be seen in almost every garden. 



In the wilder portions of the country Dr. Gambel found them attacliing 

 their nest almost exclusively to low horizontal brandies of the Quercus agri- 

 folia, or evergreen oak, so common in that region. The nest he describes 

 as small, only about an inch in dej^th, and 1.25 inches in diameter, formed in 

 the most delicate manner of pappus and down of various plants matted into 

 a soft felt, with spider's- webs, which he frequently observed them collecting 

 for the purpose, in the spring, along hedges and fence -rows. The base of 

 the nest is formed of a few dried male aments of the oak, which, with the 

 adjoining felt-like matting of pappus, are agglutinated and bound around 

 the twig with a thick layer of spider's-webs. The note of this bird, he 

 states, is a slender chej), frequently repeated. During the breeding-season 

 they are very pugnacious, darting like meteors among the trees, uttering a 

 loud and repeated twittering scold. They also have the habit of ascending 

 to a considerable height, and then of descending with great rapidity, uttering 

 at the same time a peculiar cry. The glutinous pollen of a tubular flower 

 upon which these birds feed often adheres to the rigid feathers of the crown, 

 and causes the bird to seem to have a bright yellow head. Nuttall, who 

 never obtained the male of this species, but saw them in this condition, sup- 

 posed this to be a yellow spot in the crown, and hence his supposed species 

 of icterocephahis. 



