HUMMING-BIRDS. 447 



its chosen territory. The nest is about two and a half to three inches in length, com- 

 posed outwardly of interlaced vegetable fibres, twigs, moss, etc., and lined with soft 

 hair, etc. It is placed in some gully, and attached to any hanging root or twig that 

 will afford it support. The eggs are oblong in shape, and pure white. When on the 

 wing, this bird makes extraordinary turns and rapid evolutions, at one moment darting 

 headlong into a flower, at another describing circles in the air with such rapidity that 

 the eye is unable to follow it. The female is less brilliant in plumage, but has a tail 

 of metallic colors, save the external feather which is white on the outer web. Total 

 length of males six and three quarters inches. 



Next to /Sappho comes Cynanthus, with two species, also having lengthened tails 

 adorned with metallic hues, but less showy, for the colors are blue and green instead 

 of brilliant red and black. 



Lesbia possesses four species, with very long rectrices of rather narrow but even 

 width for their entire length, and having generally a luminous tip. All the species 

 have metallic green throats, and differ from each other in size and in the length and 

 coloration of their tails. The females are very different in appearance, having white 

 breasts spangled with green, and comparatively short tails. The best and longest 

 known species is L. amaryllis, from Colombia and Ecuador. It frequents the gar- 

 dens in the city of Quito, and is familiar to every one, and is equally common at 

 Bogota. When poised in the air, with tail outspread over a flower it makes a loud 

 humming noise. The males are very pugnacious and frequent combats take place 

 between them, and these are persisted in with great energy until one is driven away. 



One of the most extraordinary birds known to naturalists, the wonderful Loddlge- 

 sia mirabilis, is remarkable for having only four rectrices, the two median ones very 

 short, and entirely hidden by the coverts. The outer ones are greatly lengthened, 

 some three or four times the extent of the body without the bill, the shafts destitute 

 of webs until the tips are reached, when they terminate in large indigo-colored spat- 

 ules. These rectrices are curved throughout their entire length into a semi-circle, so 

 that in the natural position of the tail they cross each other twice ; at first near their 

 base, and then, at about a third of their length, the remaining portion takes a direction 

 directly across the axis of the bird's body. The under tail-coverts are long, but the 

 two middle feathers are much longer than the body of the bird, gradually diminish in 

 width, and terminate in a point. This structure of the tail is absolutely unique among 

 birds. This species was first procured by an English botanist, Andrew Matthews, 

 fifty years ago at Chachapoyas in Peru, and the specimen remained unique until the 

 year 1881, when M. Stolzmann procured a series of examples in the vicinity of the 

 same place from which the type originally came, but the birds appeared to be localized 

 in the basin of the TJtcubamba, a little river on the right bank of the Maranon. It is 

 found only at an altitude between 7500 and 9000 feet above the ocean. The country 

 inhabited by this extraordinary bird is covered with cultivated fields, small valleys 

 with more or less vegetation, and here and there large trees, the probable remnants of 

 ancient forests. A beautiful red-colored Alstromeria is the favorite flower of this 

 bird, and wherever this is met with the Loddigesia is sure to be found, and as the 

 Lesbia gracilis, its chief persecutor, does not visit this flower, the present species can 

 rest unmolested. Even in the localities it frequents this bird is not common, the 

 adult males rather rare. From morning to night it is in constant motion ; its flight is 

 inconceivably rapid, and it is remarkable with what unerring precision it traverses the 

 thickets where it is obliged to change its course almost every second to escape from 



