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The Hon. Anthony Chaplin—Humming Birds



writes of this elevated plateau as follows : “ Everywhere around, the

confines of the forest are encircled by broad bands of social plants, as

the delicate Aralia, the Thibandia, and the myrtle-leaved Andromeda ;

whilst the Alpine Rose, the magnificent Befaria, weaves a purple girdle

round the spiry peaks. In the cold regions of the paramos , which is

continually exposed to the fury of storms and winds, we find that

flowering shrubs, and herbaceous plants bearing large and variegated

blossoms, have given place to’ the monocotyledons, whose slender

spikes constitute the sole covering of the soil. . . . Where the naked

trachyte rock pierces the grassy turf, and penetrates into those higher

strata of air, which are supposed to be less charged wdth carbonic

acid, we meet only with plants of an inferior organization, as lichens,

lecideas, and the brightly coloured dust-like lepraria, scattered around

in circular patches. Islets of fresh-fallen snow, varying in form and

extent, arrest the last feeble traces of vegetable development, and to

these succeeds the region of perpetual snow.” And at the very edge

of this desolate region on Chimborazo is found a lovely Humming Bird,

the Hill-star Oreotrochilus chimborazo, and so do many more of these

peaks possess their particular species. These Alpine birds have been

observed feeding on minute insects for which they search among the

lichens where the snow has been dispersed by the wind or melted by

the sun. The farther we proceed from the Equator the fewer are the

species to be met with. Nevertheless, these fly north to breed in sub-

Arctic North America, and one, for some inexplicable cause, favours

for the same purpose the dreary dripping woods of Tierra del Fuego.

Of outlying habitats the most curious is the island of Juan Fernandez

in the Pacific about four hundred miles from the coast of Chili.


In such a vast family as that of the Trochilidce it is not to be wondered

at that the variety of form is very considerable, the largest being

equal in size to the European Swift while the smallest is comparable

to a bee. Every conceivable length and curvature of bill is to be

found, from that of Docimastes, which exceeds its owner’s length, to

the exceedingly short organ of Rhamphomicrum , which has an almost

Swallow-like head. The greatest extremes of curvature are found

between Eutoxeres and Avocettula, for while the bill of the former

curves downwards to form a semi-circle, that of the latter is upturned



