JG ouU ajtili Cfiutów, tULdhÜi.
UROCHROA BOUGUERI.
Pied-tail.
Trochilus Bougueri, Bourc. Compte rend. de 1’Acad. des Sci., tom. xxxii. p. 186.
Cceligena bougueri, Bonap. Rev. et Mag. de Zool. 1854, p. 252.
Coeligena Bouguieri, Reicbenb. Aufz. der Colibris, p. 7.— Ib. Troch. enumer., p. 3.
T he discovery of this new and very remarkable Hamming Bird is due to the researches of M. Bourcier,
who, dnring his late visit to Ecuador, obtained many new species and much valuable information respecting
the Trochilidse. The present is certainly not among the least important of these discoveries, the bird heing
of large size and possessing several characters peculiar to itself; at the same time, it must be admitted that
its colours are not so contrasted or lustrous as those of some of its congeners. lts general contour and the
form of its bill and wings rendering it impossible to associate it with the members of any previously
established genus, and the colouring of its tail—black, interspersed with white—presenting a character
quite unique; I have been induced to constitute it the type of a new genus, the propriety of which must
be determined by time and further research, which will probably reveal to us other species of the form; for
it must be recollected that our knowledge of the productions of the great primeval forests of Southern
America is even yet very imperfect, altliough each succeeding year has for some time past made us more
and more acquainted with them.
Both Sir William Jardine and myself have received specimens of this bird from Professor Jameson,
whose researches in the forests round Quito have so frequently been attended with satisfactory results.
M. Bourcier’s specimens were obtained in the great woods of the hot regions of Nanégan.
Lores reddish-brown; space under the eye, forehead, all the upper surface and upper tail-coverts dark
coppery-bronze, with a tinge of green on the greater wing-coverts, and becoming of a brighter or more
coppery hue on the upper tail-coverts ; wings dark purple ; two centre and the outer tail-feather on each
side purplisli-black ; the remaining tail-feathers white, broadly margined externally, and very slightly fringed
on the apical portion of their inner webs with purplish-black; throat shining greenish-blue, passing into
grass-green on the sides of the neck ; all the under surface dark olive, glossed with grass-green.
The figures are the size of life. The plant is the Ceratostema longiflorum.