TROPICAL NATURE 



allied species on Chimborazo ranges from fourteen thousand 

 feet to the limits of perpetual snow at sixteen thousand feet 

 elevation. It frequents a beautiful yellow- flowered alpine 

 shrub belonging to the Asteracese. On the extinct volcano of 

 Chiriqui in Veragua a minute humming-bird, called the little 

 Flame -bearer, has been only found inside the crater. Its 

 scaled gorget is of such a flaming crimson that, as Mr. Gould 

 remarks, it seems to have caught the last spark from the 

 volcano before it was extinguished. 



Not only are humming-birds found over the whole extent 

 of America, from Sitka to Tierra-del-Fuego, and from the 

 level of the sea to the snow-line on the Andes, but they in- 

 habit many of the islands at a great distance from the main- 

 land. The West Indian islands possess fifteen distinct species 

 belonging to eight different genera, and these are so unlike 

 any found on the continent that five of these genera are 

 peculiar to the Antilles. Even the Bahamas, so close to 

 Florida, possess two peculiar species. The small group of 

 islands called Tres Marias, about sixty miles from the west 

 coast of Mexico, has a peculiar species. More remarkable are 

 the two humming-birds of Juan Fernandez, situated in the 

 Pacific Ocean, four hundred miles west of Valparaiso in Chili, 

 one of these being peculiar; while another species inhabits 

 the little island Mas-afuera, ninety miles farther west. The 

 Galapagos, though very little farther from the mainland and 

 much more extensive, have no humming-birds ; neither have 

 the Falkland islands, and the reason seems to be that both 

 these groups are deficient in forest, and in fact have hardly 

 any trees or large shrubs, while there is a great paucity of 

 flowers and of insect life. 



Humming-birds of Juan Fernandez as illustrating Variation and 



Natural Selection 



The three species Avhich inhabit Juan Fernandez and Mas- 

 afuera present certain peculiarities of great interest. They 

 form a distinct genus, Eustephanus, one species of which in- 

 habits Chili as well as the island of Juan Fernandez. This, 

 which may be termed the Chilian species, is greenish in both 

 sexes, whereas in the two species peculiar to the islands the 

 males are red or reddish-brown, and the females green. The 



