380 



RUFOUS HUMMINGBIRD. 



and covered externally with lichens and bark-fiber, resembling the twigs to which it is 

 attached. It is usually placed from three to ten feet from the ground. A nest in the 

 B. F. Goss Collection in the Public Museum of Milwaukee is almost entirely made of 

 buif-colored plant-down, and the whole looks much like a sponge. 



NAMES: Broad-t ailed Hummingbird. 



SCIENTIFIC NAMES: Trocbilus platycercus- Swains. (1827). SELASPHORUS PLATYCERCUS Bonap. 

 (1850). 



DESCRIPTION: "Male above and on the sides, metallic-green; chin and throat, light reddish-purple; behind 

 which, and along the belly to the tail is a good deal of white. Wings and tail, dusky purplish; the 

 tail-feathers, excepting the internal and external ones, edged towards the base with light cinnamon. 

 Female without the metallic gorget; the throat-feathers with dusky centres. The tail somewhat 

 cuneate, as in the male, etc., etc. 



"Length, 3.50 inches; wing, 1.92; tail, 1.40; bill, .80." (B. B. R., II, p. 463.) 



RUFOUS HUMMINGBIRD. 



Selaspborus rufus Swainson. 



Plate XXXV. 



Minutest of the feathered kind, 

 Fossessiiig^ every charm combin'd, 

 Nature, in forming: thee, design'd 



That thou shouldpt be 



A proof within how little space 

 She can comprise such perfect grace. 

 Rendering thy lovely fairy race 



Beauty's epitome. 



Thou burnished colors to bestow, 

 Her pencil in the heavenly bow 

 She dipp'd, and made thy plumes to glow 

 With every hue. 



CHARLOTTS SMITHi 



^F ALL our western Hummingbirds," says Prof R. Ridgway, "the Roufous-backed 

 has the, widest distribution, its breeding range extending from the mountains of 

 Arizona to latitude 61° on the coast of Alaska, and from the Pacific coast to New 

 Mexico and Colorado. It mtfet not be inferred from this general statement, however, 

 that the species breeds everywhere within the wide extent of territory thus defined, for, 

 on the cotltrary, certain conditions of climate and vegetation, dependent on altitude as 

 well as latitude, are necessary for its existence. In Colorado, for example, it is said to 

 breed only above an elevation of 6,500 feet, ranging thence up to 10,500 feet, although 

 in the Santa Catalina Mountains of southern Arizona, so much farther south, its breed- 

 ing range is said to be between 4,000 and 6,000 feet elevation. 



"In Ventura County, California, it is said to be the most abundant species of the 

 family during summer; but Mr. fielding says that in the Sierra Nevada it is a rare 

 summer resident above 4,000 feet. It seems not to occur at all in Lower California, 

 except possibly as a casual visitant or straggler, since Mr. fielding never met with 

 it during his several explorations of that peninsula." 



