The Broad-tailed Hummer 
bushes or trees, usually near water. Eggs: 2; white; blunt elliptical; av. of 15 speci¬ 
mens (U. S. N. M.) 12.7 x 8.3 (.50 x .33). Season: May, June, July; two broods. 
General Range. —Western North America. Breeds from Wyoming, southern 
Idaho, and (probably) eastern Oregon, south to Valley of Mexico, and from western 
Nevada and the desert ranges of eastern California to western Nebraska and western 
Texas; winters in Mexico and Guatemala. 
Range in California. —Summer resident in the timbered desert ranges of eastern 
California—at least the White Mountains and the Inyo range, probably the Panarpints, 
Argus, Amargosa, etc. 
Authorities.—Swarth, Condor, vol. xviii., 1916, p. 130 (Inyo Mts.); Grinnell, 
Pac. Coast Avifauna, no. 11, 1915, p. 184 (Hypothetical List, Calif, birds); ibid., 
Condor, vol. xx., 1918, p. 87 (White Mts., breeding); Dickey, Condor, vol. xxiv., 1922, 
p. 135 (White Mts Bendire, Life Hist. N. Am. Birds, vol. ii., 1895, p. 210 (habits, 
nests, eggs, etc.). 
AN OLD ADAGE runs, the wish is father to the thought. If ever 
there was a bird wished onto the California check-list, it is the Broad-tailed 
Hummer. The amiable conspiracy began way back in 1868, when Dr. 
Cooper recorded 1 a female from Lake Tahoe. This Dr. Grinnell later 
proved to be a young male of 5 . rufus ; 2 and in like manner the astute 
scholar proceeded to demolish all ensuing “records.” The field was 
clear, then, for Mr. Harry Swarth, who in 1916 published what is undoubt¬ 
edly the first authentic account of the bird’s occurrence within this 
State, viz., upon the western slopes of the Inyo Mountains, near Inde¬ 
pendence, Alay 24, 1912. Even then the discoverer modestly disclaimed 
credit for a State record, because he didn’t have a gun handy, and left 
it for his junior colleague, Mr. H. S. White, to clinch the record, on the 
13th of August, 1917, by taking a nest with young, and the adult female, 
upon the eastern slope of the White Mountains in Inyo County. A 
paragraph from Mr. Swarth’s account 1 is well worth quoting: “Several 
times during our stay 1 was satisfied that I heard the shrill buzz of wings 
of the male Broad-tailed Hummingbird; but not until our last day at 
this point (Mazourka Canyon, Inyo Mts.) was I able to get sight of the 
bird. This noise is as loud and quite as characteristic as in the Rufous 
and Allen Hummingbirds, though of a different tone; as far as I know 
it is absolutely distinctive among North American hummingbirds. 
Acquaintance with the species in the mountains of Arizona had familiar¬ 
ized me with his flight sound, and also with the fact that the birds are 
frequently most difficult to see in spite of their noisy mode of progression. 
I was not greatly surprised at my failure to catch sight of the humming¬ 
birds, which I was satisfied were in Alazourka Canyon, but kept on the 
1 Proc. Calif. Acad. Sci., IV., 1868, p. 7, fide Grinnell, Pac. Coast Avifauna, No. 11, p. 184. 
2 A Distributional List of the Birds of Calif., by Joseph Grinnell, 1915, pp. 184-185. Condor, Vol. XVIII., May 
1916, p. 130. 
3 Condor, XVIII., May, 1916, p. 130. 
923 
