266 BULLETIN 15 5, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Females, four specimens, wing 102.7-108.4 (105.8), tail 41.0-44.0 

 (42.5), culmen from base 4.2-4.4 (4.3), tarsus 7.0-7.3 (7.1) mm. 



The palm swift is so tiny, being only 100 to 120 mm. long, that it 

 will be confused with no other swift on the island. It is sooty black 

 on back, wings and tail, the black being somewhat browner on head 

 and sides, and white on breast, abdomen, and rump. 



Suborder TROCHILI 



Family TROCHILIDAE 5 

 Subfamily Trochilinae 



[ARCHILOCHUS COLUBRIS (Linnaeus) 

 RTJBY- THROATED HUMMINGBIRD 



Trochilus colulris Linnaeus, Syst. Nat., ed. 10, vol. 1, 1758, p. 120 (Carolina 

 to New England). 



Archilochus colubris, Beebe, Zool. Soc. Bull., vol. 30, 1927, p. 140; Beneath 

 Tropic Seas, 1928, pp. 167-168, 222 (Bizoton, seen). 



Status uncertain. 



Beebe writes that " a male hummed about my head for several 

 minutes, and then perched a few feet away at Bizoton sand beach 

 on March 6. As far as visual reliability alone can be trusted, this 

 is an absolute identification." And further in his book Beneath 

 Tropic Seas writes " One day as I was rowing lazily over a coral 

 reef close to the sand beach of Bizoton, I heard a sharp whirr of 

 wings directly behind me, and a moment later a ruby-throated hum- 

 mingbird alighted on the end of a long net handle which stuck up 

 over the stern-post. I rested on my oars and watched for a full 

 minute while the perfect plumaged mite preened and arranged some 

 feathers too small for my coarse eyesight. This was not any of the 

 Haitian hummers, some of which were larger and one much smaller, 

 but my own familiar countryman of northern honeysuckles. When 

 he had finished his toilet, he wiped his beak, rose gently, hung in 

 front of my face for a moment, and then, with a single upward 

 curve, set a course northward, directly across the wide expanse of 

 water." There is no other record. The species is one that is found 

 occasionally on the north coast of Cuba and in the Bahamas and 

 may come casually to Hispaniola as a winter migrant. Pending 

 further information as to its occurrence and the collection of speci- 

 mens it is held in the hypothetical list. 



5 Palytmus holosericeus, Vieillot, Hist. Nat. Ois. Am6r. Sept., vol. 2, 1807, p. 71, given 

 from " Saint-Domingue," and Trochilus holosericeus, Hartlaub, Isis, 1847, p. 609 in- 

 cluded from Hispaniola, refer to the blue-breasted hummingbird, Sericotes holosericeus 

 (Linnaeus), in which the typical form comes east through the Virgin Islands to the eastern 

 coast of Porto Rico but is not known to range farther. Its citation from Hispaniola by 

 the authors listed above must be considered an error. 



