Walter Goodfellow-—Some Reminiscences of a Collector 217


nigrivestis) fly past the camp in a snowstorm evidently to sleep among

the crags which form part of the rim of the crater above. This species

is black with a sapphire blue throat and under tail-coverts, and white

down puffs on the legs. On sunny days at the same camp I collected

two other species of the same genus, E. luciani and E. mosquera, but

usually these two are found on the bushes lower down. Another

exquisite species also up there is Oreotrochilus pichinchce, a good sized

bird with a purple blue head and a white breast. This and 0. chimborazo

of course take their names from the mountains they inhabit, but where

they overlap they breed together, the offspring being a mixture of the

two. Lord Rothschild had a fine series of such in his collection.

Pichincha is, or was, a veritable paradise for Humming Birds, but

I fear by now the bird shooters from Quito have enormously reduced

their numbers, some kinds even to extinction. The camp I am writing

about was on the eastern side and, between that and Quito, many more

than a dozen different species were to be met with, feeding on the

flowering bushes which cover the slopes. Some are permanent residents

while others come only at certain seasons. Some years only a few of

some kinds appear, or none at all. Where they migrate to has never

yet been discovered, doubtless to the slopes of some of the other great

mountains in that region as yet unfrequented by man. The species

common to bush ranges of the Andes are very few indeed, or have

marked differences. Even on Pichincha a species is confined to one side

only, as the vegetation it entirely different on the eastern and western

sides. It seems to me that with few exceptions the mountain Humming

Birds are far more beautiful, and have more eccentric forms than those

from the hot lowlands. These are far too numerous to mention more

than a few. Among the former are all the White Puff-legs and one with

black puffs. These are very conspicuous even when the birds are at

rest, but when in flight and seen from behind, they look like a snow-

white pad on each side of the tail. Then you have the real long tails

(train bearers) like Lesbia victories so common in all the gardens of

Quito, and L. gouldi gracilis , while a little lower down in the western

range is Cyanolesbia gorgo with a long broad peacock-blue tail, and

on the eastern at a corresponding altitude C. mocoa with an emerald

green one. The Swordbill (Docimasies ensiferus ) has a bill quite



