354 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1890. 



was not able to ascertain. Several were seen at the summit of the 

 mountain during the latter part of August. They were found also at 

 the Grand Canon of the Colorado, September 12 to 15. They began to 

 leave the mountain during the first week in September, and none were 

 seen after the middle of the month.* 



Mr Henshaw mentions the marked hostility existing between this 

 Humming Bird and the Rufous-backed species, but adds that, " in the 

 fall, when migrating, they are brought by the similarity of tastes and 

 habits into the same localities, and their combined numbers are in some 

 favored spots in Arizona simply surprising. The beds of bright flow- 

 ers about Willow Spring, in the White Mountains, Arizona, were alive 

 with them in August, and as they moved swiftly to and fro, now sur- 

 feiting themselves on the sweets they here found so abundant, now fight- 

 ing with each other for possession of some such tempting prize as a 

 cluster of flowers, their rapid motions, and the beauty of their colors, 

 intensified by the bright sunlight — the gorgets of gold and purple con- 

 trasting against their emerald aud bright-red bodies — conspired to an 

 effect not soon to be forgotten."t 



Genus STELLULA Gould. 



Stellula Gould, Introd. Troch. 1861, 90. Type, Trochilm calliope Gould. 

 Stellura Muls. and Verr., Class. Troch. 1865, 88. Same type. 



Generic characters. — Six middle tail-feathers contracted in the 

 middle and widened for the terminal portion, being thus of somewhat 

 spatulate or pandurate form; adult male with feathers of chin and 

 throat narrow, those of the latero-posterior portion of the latter elon- 

 gated so as to form a conspicuous ruff, only their terminal half metal- 

 lic, the basal portion being pure white; middle tail feathers without 

 any green. 



This genus appears to be most nearly related to Atthis, but is quite 

 distinct in the peculiar form and coloration of the feathers of the 

 gorget, as well as of the rectrices. But one species is known, this being 

 easily distinguished, in all stages of either sex, by the peculiar form of 

 the tail feathers, as noted above. 



Calliope Humming Bird. Stellula calliope Gould. 

 (Plate xli.) 



Trochilus (Calothorax) calliope Gould, P. Z. S. 1847, 11. 



Stellula calliope Gould, Introd. Troch. Oct. ed. 1861, 90. — Coop., Orn. Cal. I, 

 1870, 363.— B. B. and R., Hist., N. Am. B. II, 1874, 445, pi. 47, tig. 9. 



Calothorax calliope Gould, Mon. Troch. pt. xv, 1857, pi. 2; vol. in, 1861, pi. 142. 

 Mexican Satellite (Gould). 

 Star-throated Humming Bird. 

 Satellite Humming Bird. 



La Stellure calliope (Mulsant and Verreaux). 

 Chupamirto de rafagnita (D'Oca). 



* North American Fauna, No. 3, p. 93. 



+ Zoology of Wheeler's Expedition, p. 378. 



