190 i\Ir. J. OrtoH on the Iltimming-hirds 



The diversified slopes (jf tlu; Andes are more favourable for 

 their development than the uniform plains. Their head 

 quarters seem to be in New Granada ; but the precise distri- 

 bution of the species is not so well known as it might be. 

 Near the equator the species are nearly stationary ; some, as 

 the OreotrocliUus^ are confined to particular volcanoes or an 

 area of a few square miles. There is therefore greater need of 

 determining the precise locality of a specimen ; yet, in the best 

 monograph on the Trochilidte (Mr. Gould's), species are 

 assigned to such indefinite regions as Ecuador, Peru, &c. 

 J3ut Ecuador ascends from the sea-coast to 20,000 feet, and is 

 traversed by two Cordilleras and a plateau, making three very 

 distinct districts, — the faunas of the west slope, the Quito 

 valley, and the Xapo country being, with less than half a dozen 

 exceptions, entirely separate. Of the four hundred and thirty 

 known species of hummers, twenty-seven are found in and 

 around the valley of Quito, thirty-seven on the Pacific slope, 

 and twenty on the oriental side of the Andes — making a total 

 of eighty-four, or about one-fifth of the family, within the 

 llepublic of Ecuador. The paucity of hummers south of 

 the equator, in comparison with the number on or just above 

 the line, has been accounted for by the fact that the dry 

 sterile plains of Peru and the barren pamjias of La Plata are 

 unsuited to insect, and therefore to humming-bird, life. This 

 cannot be the whole reason ; for there are myriads more of 

 insects on the Lower Amazon than on the Andes, yet there 

 are not fifteen species east of Egas, or the last 1500 miles. 

 If the wanton destruction of humming-birds for mere decora- 

 tive piu-poses continues for the next decade as it has during 

 the last, several genera may become utterly extinct. This 

 is evident when we consider that many a genus is represented 

 by a single species, which species has a very circumscribed 

 habitat, and multiplies slowly, producing but two eggs a year, 

 and that at Nanegal, e. ^., a famous locality near Quito, it 

 was possible ten years ago to shoot sixteen or eighteen per 

 day, while now it is hard to get half a dozen. 



Nidification is uniform at the same altitude and latitude. 

 In the valley of Quito it occurs at about the close of the 

 rainy season, or April. The nest is built in six days ; but one 

 e^s: is laid before the nest is finished. The usual heiii-ht of 

 the nest above the ground is six leet. Some, like that of 

 our northern species, are cu[)-shaped and placed in the fork 

 of a branch ; others are hung like a hammock by threads or 

 spiders' webs to trees or rocks; while the long-tailed LiMna 

 constructs a purse-shaped nest resembling those of the Phai=- 

 lliornithina"' on the Aina/on. Like the "hermit" hummers 



