Mature male marvelous spatuletail, a rare Peruvian hummingbird, sips nectar 

 from Andean blueberry blossoms. The prominent, outsize tail feathers, known 

 as rackets, are a key element of the male's mating dance. 



ture male's most prominent featiu'e, 

 however, is its two outer tail feathers, 

 each a bare, wirelike shaft terminating 

 in a wide, glossy, violet-blue disk: the 

 spatule. Because of their paddle shape, 

 such feathers are known as rackets. 



Most hummingbirds have ten tail 

 feathers, but both male and female spat- 

 uletails have only four. The racket 

 plumes of females and immature males 

 are short and their spatules are not very 

 wide. The female s other two tail feath- 

 ers, moreover, are tairly narrow and sim- 

 ple. Those two nonplume tail feathers 

 are also reduceci in the mature male to 

 narrow shafts. Two other long, narrow 

 feathers, known as undertail coverts, 

 support the male's e.xceptional tail. The 

 racket plumes themselves cross each oth- 

 er most ot the time a third ot the way to 

 half\vay down their length, but the bird 

 can also move them indepenciently. 



In spite of its beauty, the spatuletail is 

 low in the hummingbird pecking order. 

 It spends much of its day seeking shel- 

 ter in dense thickets, keeping quiet, and 

 avoiding confrontations (which it is like- 

 ly to lose) with other species of hum- 

 mingbird. When it finally emerges to 

 feed, it is apt to move quickly, visiting 

 flowering plants on a route regular 

 enough that the blooms have time to re- 

 fill with nectar between successive vis- 

 its. Hummingbirds run on high-octane 

 fuel and, in an unusual display of terri- 

 torial behavior, defend their energy 

 source from other species of humming- 

 birds and even from insects. For ex- 

 ample, I once watched a male spatule- 

 tail feed by perching on some blossoms 

 and hovering at others, but his meal was 

 continually interrupted by an aggressive 

 sparkling violet-ear that darted from 

 above, protecting the blossoms from 

 what it clearly regarded as an intruder. 



After a successful bird-watching 

 outing in the Peruvian Andes 1 

 usually have the luxury of retiring to 

 some comfortable if rather out-of- 

 the-way hotel. Earlier naturalists had 

 to endure long and dangerous expe- 

 ditions to enjoy a similar experience. 

 Andrew Mathews, a botanist who 

 ventured to northern Peru in 1S35, 



was asked by his friend George Lod- 

 diges to collect as many hummingbirds 

 as he could. A letter Mathews wrote 

 to him from Chachapoyas captures the 

 spirit ot the time. 



The country has been in such a state ot 

 revolution for some time past, that it is very 

 difficult to send large collections from this 

 [place] to the coast. ... I had heard of the 

 deatli ot poor Douglas trom Mr. Maclean, 

 and regret it extremely. Science has lost one 

 of its ablest and most indefatigable collec- 

 tors. I can assure you that many times whilst 

 travelling in this country my life has been 

 exposed to imminent danger in tlie 

 |ravines| and bad roads of the Cordillera. 



Mathews's words were prescient, tor 

 ultimately he, too, perished in the course 



of his adventures. The fact was record- 

 ed in a monograph on htimmingbircis 

 published between 1849 and 1861 by 

 John Gould, a gifted artist who, begin- 

 ning in 1827, worked as a taxidermist at 

 the Zoological Society of London. His 

 sciendfic description of the marvelous 

 spatuletail accompanies his lithograph of 

 the species [sec ilhi^tyatioii on next pds^c]. 

 Both were based on the specimen in 

 Loddiges'scollecdon, which explains the 

 genus name Loddi'^e.^id, bestowed by 

 Gould. Working with the dead bird, 

 Gould could only guess at how the 

 males unusual tail tuncticined m lite: 



It \\(Uild be \er\' iiitcrcstmg to soc tins 

 bu d on the \\ uig: tor 1 h.i\ e no doubt th.it 



February 2006 nauiiai mis|(ir\ 25 



