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On a collection of Humming Birds from Ecuador and Mexico

1894; Natural History Museum at Tring; Volume: 1; Linguagem: Inglês

10.5962/bhl.part.24562

0950-7655

T Thalurania, Hjrpochlora Gould,

Species Distribution and Climate Change

IN the summer of 1893 the Triug Museum received the most heautiful collection of Humming-Birds that ever reached Europe.They were collected by Mr. 0. T. Baron, mostly in Ecuador, and partly in Mexico and California.The most remarkable character of this collection is their preservation, for they are all stuffed />w« the flesh in the most lifelike positions, as they were observed by the collector, who shot and stuffed them all himself.They surpass in beauty everything we have ever seen of Humming-birds.As will become obvious from onr remarks, the collection -besides its external beauty -contains some species of great scientific interest, and even unknown forms.The collection was accompanied by a number of nests and eggs, and by valuable notes of the collector -which, however, we sh(rald have liked more detailed and more complete, as Mr. Baron's experience must have unveiled to him many unrecorded facts of the life-history of the beauteous daylight-stars of the Andes.In our arrangement of the species represented in this collection we have followed the standard work of Mr. Osbert Salvin in the Catalogue, of Birds, vol.xvi., but we must cimfess that this is merely done for the sake of convenience of our readers and ourselves, and that-without presuming to criticise Mr. Salvin's arrangement of this very difficult grou]) -we do not consider the divisions made according to the presence or absence of serrations on the sheath of the maxilla a very fortunate step, especially as between the sections with the serrate tomia and with the smooth tomia a great number of intermediate forms (Trochili iiUermeilii) had to be placed.1. Heliothrix auritus (Gm.).A male and a female from Zamora, on the east side of the Andes, shot on May Kith and in June.v;.Heliothrix barroti (Bourc).West of the Andes, on the Rio Pescado, near Naranjal; shot on February 18th.Also seen there in March and April. Schistes geofiroyi (Bonrc. & Muls.).A tine group collected at Rio Negro Hacienda, on the Rio Pastassa, east of the Andes, in the month of August, when they were in good plumage. Schistes albogiilaris (Jonkl.Two specimens with the white throat iu poor plumage, both marked " female," shot at Gualaquiza, Ecuador, at an elevation of 4000 feet.( 44 ) o. Hemistephania ludoviciae rectirostris (Gould).