[Illustration: Plate 22 The Purple-throated Humming Bird Trochilus Alexandri (_Bourcier_)]
TROCHILUS ALEXANDRI.—Bourcier and Mulsant. The Purple-throated Humming Bird. PLATE XXII.—Adult Males.
The Humming Birds are peculiar to America. Until within a comparatively recent period, about one hundred species were known to naturalists,—that being the then considered large number enumerated in works published as lately as within about twenty years. Discoveries of previously unknown species in this family of birds have been numerous beyond precedent or comparison with any other, notwithstanding the zeal and ability which ornithology has commanded within the period mentioned. At present, there are nearly three hundred ascertained species of Humming Birds. The large and recent additions have resulted, in a great measure, from the exploration of regions previously little visited or inaccessible, principally in the northern part of South America, but also in Central America and Mexico.
That portion of the continent of America between the Amazon as a southern boundary, and the Rio Grande and Gila as a northern, embracing New Grenada and Guiana, the whole of Central America and Mexico, to which may be added the West India Islands, appears to be the most productive of Humming Birds. Within that range, but especially in the Republic of New Grenada, these splendid little birds are much the most abundant, and it embraces nearly all of the most remarkable in form and most beautiful in plumage. Southward into Brazil and Peru, and other countries of South America, a considerable variety of species are also found; but, in the north, that is to say, north of the line between Mexico and the United States, we have few species of Humming Birds, and even those give us but an imperfect idea of the gorgeous tints of their relatives of the tropical regions of this continent.
Of the natural productions of America, these birds have attracted the most universal admiration. Nor has it been, by any means, without foundation. Nature appears to have exhausted herself in the lavish profusion of colors of every tint and shade with which she has adorned these gems of the animal world. They are the most splendidly colored and at the same time the most diminutive of birds. Almost every color known in art is to be met with in the plumage of some one or other of the Humming Birds, and usually with a lustre more resembling that of the most highly finished workmanship in metal, or of the most exquisite precious stones, than the transient or easily destroyed appendages of a delicate animal organization.