THE BLAGK-GHINNED HUMMINGBIED. 199 



others, apparently equally well suited, it is comparatively rare. It has not yet 

 been recorded, so far as I am aware, from any point west of the Cascade Moun- 

 tains in Oregon and Washington, and, in fact, it must be considered as rather 

 rare throughout the eastern portion of these States and Idaho. 



Mr. John Fannin, curator of the Provincial Museum at Victoria, British 

 Columbia, in his "Check List of British Columbia Birds," says: "Confined to 

 the mainland; both slopes of the Cascades." 



Mr. R. S. Williams took a single specimen at Columbia Falls, Montana, on 

 May 27, 1893, and a few others were seen subsequently. He writes me: "In 

 this State they do not appear to breed east of the Rocky Mountains." 



Mr. Frank M. Drew records it from Colorado, where it has been observed 

 up to 6,000 feet, and Mr. C. F. Morrison, in a list of birds of La Plata County, 

 in the same State, reports it as common and breeding, saying: "A nest shown 

 me contained three eggs."^ 



There are specimens in the United States National Museum collection from 

 New Mexico, Arizona, Cahfornia, Nevada, Utah, and Texas. In the latter State 

 Mr. H. P. Attwater has found it nesting at San Antonio, and Mr. William Lloyd 

 in Tom Green and Concho counties, which places mark about the eastern limits 

 of its breeding range. It is only a summer visitor in the United States and 

 British Columbia, and breeds wherever found. Throughout the greatei portions 

 of Arizona, southern Utah, and southern and southeastern California it breeds 

 abundantly, and is apparently as much at home in the hot valleys bordering the 

 Colorado Desert as in the higher Sierra Nevadas, where Lieut. H. C. Benson, 

 Fourth Cavalry, United States Army, took fom' of its nests and eggs on May 

 29, 1892, in the Sequoia National Park, at an altitude of over 9,000 feet; while 

 in semitropical San Diego County, California, judging from the number of breed- 

 ing records I have, it is, if anything, still more common. 



Mr. F. Stephens writes me: "I have taken the nest and eggs of the Black- 

 chinned Hummingbird near Fort Bayard, New Mexico, in 1876, where this 

 species is rather common, and it is an abundant summer resident of southern 

 California, below the pine zone. I have also found a set of eggs of this species 

 near San Bernardino, California, laid in a nest of the House Finch, Carpodacus 

 mexicanus frontalis. No lining had been added, or an}- other changes made ; the 

 bird evidently was in haste to lay, her nest, perhaps, having been suddenly 

 destroyed." 



The general habits of the Black-chinned Hummingbird are very similar to 

 those of the eastern Ruby-throat. Ordinarily it makes its appearance along 

 our southern border early in March, returning south about the 1st of October. 

 Its call notes and actions during the mating season resemble those of the former, 

 and, like it, the bulk of its food consists of minute insects. 



Mr. R. H. Lawrence writes me: "On June 18 and 19, 1894, in Los Angeles 

 County, California, the Black-chinned as well as Anna's and Costa's Humming- 

 birds were very common in a little tract of wild tobacco, Nicotiana glaiica, of 



• The Ornithologist aud Oologist, Vol. XXII, 1888, p. 107. 



