BREWSTER: BIRDS OF THE CAPE REGION, LOWER CALIFORNIA. iWEy 
deep velvety often glossed with violet or blue; the metallic green of the throat, 
clear and brilliant; the cinnamon rufous of the under parts, rich and pure. 
The spring birds (March, April, and May), are uniformly much duller and 
paler, the green of the back being much tinged with ashy or rusty, and the 
black of the head with brown, while the green of the throat is muddy in tone 
and but slightly iridescent. One bird (No. 17,031, Triunfo, April 11, 1887) 
has the black of the head confined to the auriculars, and the green of the 
throat to a few central spots, the rest of the under parts being dull cinnamon 
rufous, and the entire upper parts dull green with most of the feathers tipped 
with rusty cinnamon. This specimen is evidently immature and probably in 
juvenal plumage. The fact that it is the only male in the entire series which 
does not have the whole throat greenish and the forehead, cheeks, and lores 
black or dark brownish, would seem to indicate that young birds acquire the 
fully adult plumage with their first complete moult. 
Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway describe and figure the male of this species as 
having “a distinct white stripe from bill, through and behind the eye.” Coues 
says } that this stripe passes *‘ through the eye.” Elliot implies that it is situ- 
ated as in B. leucotis, that is, ‘‘ above and behind the eye.” Ridgway states ? 
that it is “ behind eye.” In all of the seventy males in my series it starts 
immediately above the middle of the eye, and curving down behind it extends 
straight backward along the side of the head for about half an inch, im- 
pinging closely on the eye both above and behind the upper eyelid. 
Another discrepancy in the descriptions just referred to is in respect to the 
color of the bill. Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway say “whole upper mandible 
apparently dusky; base of lower, red:” Coues, “ flesh-colored, black tipped ;” 
Elliot, ‘‘red, tip black.” In my dried specimens the basal half to three- 
fourths of the upper mandible and the basal three-fourths to seven-eighths of 
the lower mandible are flesh-colored, the remainder of both mandibles being 
dark brown. 
Females. As with the males, the spring specimens are much paler and duller 
than the summer ones. Some of the latter have the top and sides of head, the 
upper tail coverts, and the middle pair of tail feathers strongly tinged with 
cinnamon. The superciliary stripe is often nearly pure white in early spring 
birds. Ridgway says ® that the throat of the female is either “ with or without 
green spots.” In my series of forty-one females not one shows the slightest 
trace of green spotting on the throat. 
This Hummingbird is peculiar to Lower California, but it is not strictly con- 
fined to the Cape Region, for Mr. Frazar found it common at a point about one 
hundred and fifty miles north of La Paz among the mountains opposite Car- 
men Island in latitude 26°, and Mr. Bryant has traced its extension still farther 
northward to about latitude 29°. It seems to be most abundant, however, in 
1 Key N. Amer. Birds, 4th ed., 1894, 460. 
2 Man. N. Amer. Birds, 1887, 318. 
® Loc. cit. 
