COMETES? GLYCERIA, Go^ad. 



Purple-tailed Comet. 



Cometes Mossai, Gould, in Athenaeum, Sept. 24, 1853.— lb. Report of Brit. Assoc. 1853, p. 68 

 Leshia glyceria, Bonap. Rev. et Mag. de Zool. 1854, p. 252. 



During the many years that I have given attention to the Trochilidse, I have not met with a bird which has 

 caused me more thought, and I may say perplexity, than the one represented on the accompanying Plate. 

 In point of affinity it is intimately allied to the members of the genera Leshia^ Cometes and Cynanthm, par- 

 taking as it does, either in form or colouring, of characters pertaining to each of those genera. Sometimes 

 it has occurred to me that it might be a hybrid between either two of them, but I am perfectly at a loss to 

 say which two species would be likely to produce such a cross. Such an idea has entered my mind, but 

 when I have again and again reconsidered the matter, it has appeared to me that it is a distinct species, and 

 that it may ultimately prove to be the female or young male of some gorgeous bird with which we are at 

 present unacquainted. The only example known, and which is in my own collection, was procured by 

 M. Mossa, near Popayan in Columbia, and by him sent to M. Parzudaki of Paris, from whom I obtained it. 



I regret to find that some confusion exists with regard to the specific name of this fine bird. Aware of 

 its interest in a scientific point of view, I exhibited the specimen to the Natural History Section of the 

 British Association for the Advancement of Science, at their meeting in Hull in 1853, and suggested the 

 name of Mossai as its specific appellation ; but in an after-conversation, my friend the late Prince Charles 

 Lucien Bonaparte advised me to give it the name of Glycena as being a more appropriate name for so 

 beautiful a bird, and this name having appeared in the Prince's and other lists of the family prior to the 

 publication of the British Association Report, it is the one which must be adopted. M. Mossa being thus 

 deprived of the compliment I had intended him, I beg here to testify to the value of his discovery, and to 

 record my sense of M. Parzudaki's kindness in giving me the first offer of so fine a bird. 



On the tip of the hind-claw, I find a hard, agglutinated, wax-like mass which is irremoveable ; as I have 

 seen nothing like it in any other member of the family, I have thought it only right to mention it. 



Head, back of the neck, wing-coverts, back and tail-coverts deep shining green ; wings purplish brown ; 

 chin and throat metallic light olive-green ; sides of neck and under surface buff, with a spot of deep shining 

 green on the tip of each feather ; tail dark reddish purple, passing into deep bluish green at the tip, except 

 on the outer feathers, where the hue is so faint as to be scarcely perceptible ; the outer feathers also have 

 the basal three-fourths of the shafts and the outer webs bufl'y white, the base of the shaft paler than the 

 web ; basal three-fourths of the shaft of the next feather also buflTy white ; under tail-coverts buff, with a 

 brown mark in the centre near the tip. 



The figures are of the natural size. The plant is the Enjihroduton Brasiliense. 



