Title: Key to North American birds. Containing a concise account of every species of living and fossil bird at present known from the continent north of the Mexican and United States boundary, inclusive of Greenland and lower California, with which are incorporated General ornithology: an outline of the structure and classification of birds; and Field ornithology, a manual of collecting, preparing, and preserving birds
Identifier: cu31924090281225 (find matches)
Year: 1887 (1880s)
Authors: Coues, Elliott, 1842-1899; Fuertes, Louis Agassiz, 1874-1927. asn; Estes & Lauriat. prt; John Wilson and Son. prt
Subjects: Birds; Birds; 1887
Publisher: Boston, Estes and Lauriat
Contributing Library: Cornell University Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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TBOCHILID^—TBOCHILINJE: RUBUUNG-BIRDS. 469 from the fact that, as in Passeres proper, the flexor longus hallucis is independent of the flexor longus digiturum, —that is, the muscle wliicli bends the hind toe worlis separately from that which flexes the other toes collectively. The arrangement of the thigh muscles is tlie same as in Cypselidce. There is one carotid artery, the left; a nude (jil-glaud ; no cuica. The ptcrylosis is characteristic. The food of the Plummcrs ^yas formerly supposed to he the sweets of flowers. It is now known that they are chiefly insectivorous. Their little nests are models of architectural heauty. The eggs are always two in number. The young hatch weak and helpless, requiring to bo fed by the parents, the Hummers being thus of altricial nature. The voice is not musical. The family is one of the most perfectly circumscribed in ornithology, and one of the largest of its grade. So intimately and variously are the genera interrelated that every attempt to divide it into subfamilies has proven unsatisfactory. The hummers are peculiar to Americ^a. Species occur from Alaska to Pitigoni i but we ha-se ^ mere spimklni^ m tins ciunti) 1 he centre of abundance is in tropical South America, particularly New Gra- nada. Nearly 500 spe- cies are current; the numljer of positively spe- cific forms may be esti- mated at about 400 or more. The genera or subgenera vary with au- thors from .50 to 1.50. The latest critical auth(jr- ity upon the subject gives 426 species, assigned to 125 genera. (Elliot.) None of the known N. A. Hummers exhibits the extremes of shape of bill or tail which some of the tropical genera illus- trate ; in only one (Calo- tliorax lucifer') is the bill decidedly curved. Only one species is as much as 4 inches long, — the magnificent Eugenes fuJgens. Some curious shapes of tail, including marked se.xual characters in this respect, are exhibited by certain genera. Only one species, the common Euby-throat, is known to occur in the East; this was the only one known to Wilson. Audubon gave four species, but one of them erroneously. Since his time, however, new ftjrms of these exquisite creatures have successively been brought to light over our Mexican border. In 185S, Baird gave seven (one of them Lampornis mango, erroneously, as Audubon had done). In 1872, in the " Key," I was able to increase the number to ten, but with two wrongly given (the Lampornis and Agyrtria linnaii). The same ten, with the two errors, were given by Baird and Eidgway in 1874. Within a few years the discoveries have been so many, that, after eliminating the two errors, I am able to describe no fewer than fifteen peifectly distinct species of United States Humming-birds; and I have no doubt that several others will in due time be found over our Mexican border. The discrimination of the females and young is difficult; but with the adult males there should be no trouble. The following table is intended to enable the student to tell the genus and species directly of any U. S. Hummer, if the specimen he has in hand be an adult male.
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Fig 2)1 - (SLeppard del. 1 \ tl 1 t 1 Hummu Nichols sc.) iitst nearly nat size

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