Page:Notes on the Ornithology of Southern Texas.djvu/34

Rh Pyrrhophcena cerviniventris t Caban. & Heine, Mus. Hem. Ill, 1860, 36 (note).— Gould, Introd. Trocbilid. 1861, 157 (Cordova). Eranna cerviniventris, Heine, J. f. O. 1863, 187 (Cordova). Polytmus cerviniventris, Gray, Hand-list, I, 1869, 132, No. 1079 (Mexico. — Subg. Amazili).

Sp. ch. — Above metallic grass-green, varying to golden-green, duller on the crown and more bronzy on the upper tail-coverts, which are sometimes slightly tinged on the edges with rufous. Tail cinnamon- rufous, the intermedin more or less glossed with greenish-bronze (some- times entirely of this color) ; the other feathers bronze terminally, this eolor usually following the edge for a greater or less distance from the tip. Wing-coverts metallic grass-green, like the back ; remainder of the wing uniform brownish-slate, with a very faint violet-purple gloss in certain lights. Throat, jugulum, and sides of the head and breast brilliant metallic- green, almost emerald in certain lights, the feathers dull white beneath the surface, thus breaking the continuity of the green, especially on the throat, where the feathers are broadly tipped with green. Eest of lower parts pale fawn-color, or dilute cinnamon- buff, deepest on the crissum ; sides glossed with bronze-green ; anal tufts and thighs cottony- white. Bill reddish (light brown in the dried skin), the terminal third blackish. Feet dusky. Wing, 2.15-2.20; tail, 1.50- 1.60, depth of its fork about 0.20 5 culmen, 0.80. Sexes alike in colora- tion.

Hab. — Eastern Mexico, from the Rio Grande Valley (United States side) to Yucatan.

The two examples in the National Collection (No. 24,873, Jalapa, and 70,949, Fort Brown, Texas) differ in some minor details of coloration Thus, the former has the middle pair of tail-feathers entirely greenish- bronze, except a very small space on each web concealed by the longer upper tail-coverts ; the bronzy ends of the other feathers are distinctly glossed with dark purple, and the outer pair of feathers have scarcely a trace of bronze at their ends. The latter specimen, on the other hand, has the basal two-thirds of the intermedise wholly rufous, the bronzy ends of the other feathers destitute of a purple gloss, and the outer pair of feathers very distinctly tipped with bronze and edged for their whole length with a darker shade of the same color. These differences, how- ever, are doubtless only individual, or, possibly, sexual. The Fort Brown specimen is a little the larger, but the difference in size is very slight. Neither has the sex marked.

I have not seen a specimen of the so-called " yucatanensis, Cabot ", but fallow Mr. Elliot (MSS.) in considering it the same as the bird after- wards described by Mr. Gould as cerviniventris. — K. R>.

This Hummer, also new to the avifauna of the United States, and heretofore known only from Mexico, was first taken on the 17th of August, 1876, and its capture noted in the Bulletin of January, 1877, p. 26. It proves to be an abundant summer visitor, and I have nowhere found