GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS WEST OF 100TH MERIDIAN. 311 
Several sets of eggs were found, which seemed to have been deposited on the ground 
hap-hazard, with little or no attention to special locality. 
Antkostomus Gould. 
A. nuttalli, And. Xuttall’s Poorwill. 
In the neighborhood of Carson the poorwill arrives from the south in the early days 
of May. It soon becomes generally and commonly distributed over nearly all the 
region embraced in the present report, being scarcely less numerous towards the north. 
Both Cooper and Suckley note its presence in the portions of Oregon and Washington 
Territory, east of the mountains, and indicate negatively its absence to the west. 
TROCHILID.E—Humming Birds. 
Stellula Gould. 
S. calliope, Gould. Calliope Humming Bird. 
The range of this diminutive humming-bird is now pretty well made out. It has 
long been known as a resident of the west coast, and there extends over much of Cali¬ 
fornia, Oregon, and Washington Territory, where in summer it is confined to the mount¬ 
ains. To the eastward its summer habitat appears to be in general limited by the 
eastern slope, along which, in Nevada, California, and Oregon, it was found by our par¬ 
ties to be very numerous. In fall, at least, it reaches as far into the middle region as the 
East Humboldt Mountains, where found in August by Mr. Ridgway. New Mexico and 
Arizona, as determined by our parties, complete its limited range in the central regions 
and likewise its known dispersion within our limits. It may breed in the latter Ter¬ 
ritories, as specimens were obtained in July. That it does so along the eastern slope 
there is no possible doubt, as about the middle of June, in Eastern California (Honey 
Lake), I often saw the females most busily at work gathering stores of down from the 
willow catkins, then hanging full, to weave into nests. I was left to conjecture that 
the location of these was in the high branches of the firs and other evergreens, as I 
failed to discover a single one, which could hardly have been the case had they been 
in positions at all accessible. 
The males were at that season very restless and wary, and to procure specimens 
proved no easy matter. The flower which here is most resorted to, not alone by this 
but by other hummers, is a species of Castillda which is found along the banks of most 
all the mountain streams. Wherever these blosoms are numerous, the hum of wings 
of these busy little pilferers as they dart to and fro is constant. 
Humming-birds have, however, in this section, another and less usual source of food 
supply, to which my attention was attracted while in the mountains near Camp Bid- 
well. For several of the early hours of morning I noticed that the humming-birds 
hovered about the upper branches of the firs and spruces, precisely as if feeding, to the 
entire neglect of the flower-bordered streams which occupied their attention later in the 
day. As this is the time when they are hungriest, I could only account for their actions 
on the supposition that they were feediug upon “honey dew.” As this may not be famil¬ 
iar to all my readers, I will state that it is a sweet saccharine substance that is depos¬ 
ited upon the foliage of trees and shrubs in many localities of this region by certain 
small insects, the plant-feeding Aphides. It is often found in considerable quantities, 
so considerable in fact that in some places, as I was informed, the Indians collect it by 
threshing the plants after the sun has evaporated it into a sugar, and make use of it as 
food. That it is sweet and palatable, I myself can testify, and doubtless as much so 
to the delicate taste of the humming-birds as to the human palate. In early morniug, 
before the sun’s rays have evaporated it, “honey dew” is found in a semi-liquified 
state, and then would be as easily managed by the brush-tipped tongues of the birds as 
the nectar of flowers. Without doubt, too, the birds secure many small insects which 
resort to feed upon this substance. 
Here I wish to notice what I believe was an error of identification on the part of Dr. 
Cooper when he mentioned the broad-tailed humming-bird ( S. ptalf/cercus) as common 
at Lake Tahoe in September.* This is quite out of the area of the known distribution 
of that bird, which is distinctively a central region species. Stellula, on the other 
hand, is a common summer resident of this region and could scarcely have been over¬ 
looked. It is not, however, mentioned by him from that locality. Hence I infer that 
his specimen of supposed platycercus was really the Stellula, more especially because he 
appears to have been in doubt, and states that at first he supposed the species to be S. 
rufus. In this latter supposition he may have been correct, but as, farther on, when 
speaking of the Stellula as*seen in the Cascade Mountains, he says he there mistook 
that species for the young of S. rufa, we may presume his mistake to have been the same 
‘Birds of California, vol. 1, 1870, p. 357. 
