VI TROCHILIDAE 437 



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

 blackish 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. Bhamplioviicron heterojwffon 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. B. tnicrorhynchum, 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. Opisthojorora euryptera of Colombia, which 

 is bronzy-green with a little rufous and white below, has an 

 upcurved bill, like Avocettula. Patagona gigas, the largest 

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

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

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

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

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

 marvel of the Family is, however, Zoddigesia mirahilis, originally 

 found in Northern Peru by a botanist named Matthews, and re- 

 discovered by M. Stolzmann ^ in almost the same locality. It is 

 shining bronzy-green, with whitish under parts surrounding a 

 black central area ; the head and its crest are lustrous cobalt-blue, 

 the throat is emerald-green with black 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. The female 

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

 lateral rectrices shewing small spatules. Cephalolepis delalandi, 

 of South-East Brazil, is bronzy-green above, 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. Eriocnemis, of the Andes from Colombia and Venezuela 

 to Bolivia, shares with Fa7ioplites and the spatulate- tailed 

 Spathura of the same regions the characteristic of possessing 

 ^ For the habits, see Taczanowski and Stolzmann, P.Z.S. 1881, pp. 827-834. 



