92 Wonders of the Bird World 



Racket-tailed Humming-bird (Loddigesia mirabilis}. It 

 well deserves its specific name of mirabilis or wonderful, 

 for it is certainly one of the most extraordinary birds in 

 existence. It was first discovered at Chachapoyas in 

 Upper Amazonia, and was described by Gould in 1847, 

 and to conceive of the way in which the majority of the 

 Humming-birds are restricted to a limited area, I may state 

 that Mr. Gould offered a large sum to travellers about to 

 visit South America, if they would bring him back 



The Racket-tailed Humming-bird (Loddigesia mirabilis). 



specimens of the Loddigesia, and yet up to the time of his 

 death in 1881 he had never succeeded in obtaining an 

 example of this rare species, which up to that time re- 

 mained unique in the Loddiges collection. In 1880, 

 however, the celebrated Polish traveller Stolzmann revisited 

 the- town of Chachapoyas, whence the original example 

 came from, and succeeded in rediscovering the species. 

 He writes as follows x " It seems to be restricted to the 

 basin of the Utcubamba, a little river on the right bank of 

 the system of the Maranon, and is only found at an altitude 

 1 Taczanowski, ' Ornithologie du PtrouJ vol. i. p. 321. 



