Mr Nuttall having presented me with the nest of this species attached to the twig to which the bird had fastened it, my amiable friend Miss Martin has figured it for me, as well as the plant, about which these lovely creatures are represented. The nest, which measures two inches and a quarter in height, and an inch and three quarters in breadth, at the upper part, is composed externally of mosses, lichens, and a few feathers, with slender fibrous roots interwoven, and lined with fine cottony seed-down.
Trochilus rufus, Gmel. Syst. Nat. vol. i. p. 497.
Trochilus collaris, Lath. Ind. Ornith. vol. i. p. 318.
Trochilus (Selasphorus) Rufus, Swainson.
Cinnamon or Nootka Humming Bird, Richards. and Swains. Fauna Bor.-Amer. vol. ii. p. 324.
Adult Male. Plate CCCLXXIX. Figs. 1, 2.
Bill long, straight, subulate, somewhat depressed at the base, acute; upper mandible with the dorsal line straight, the ridge narrow at the base, broad and convex toward the end, the sides convex, the edges overlapping, the tip acuminate; lower mandible with the angle very long and extremely narrow, the dorsal line straight, the edges erect, the tip acuminate. Nostrils basal, linear.
Head of ordinary size, oblong; neck short; body slender. Feet very small; tarsus very short, feathered more than half-way down, toes small; the lateral equal, the middle toe not much longer, the hind toe a little shorter than the lateral, anterior toes united at the base; claws rather long, arched, compressed, laterally grooved, very acute.
Plumage soft and blended; feathers on the throat, fore part and sides of the neck oblong-obovate, with the filaments towards the end thickened and flattened, with metallic gloss, those on the sides of the neck elongated and erectile. Wings rather short, extremely narrow, falcate, pointed; the primaries rapidly graduated, the second being longest, but only slightly longer than the first; these two quills taper to a point; the rest are broader, and gradually become less pointed; the secondaries are extremely short, and only five in number. Tail rather long, broad, graduated, the lateral feathers four and a half twelfths of an inch shorter than the central; the latter are extremely broad, measuring four and a half twelfths across, and the rest gradually diminish to the lateral, which are very narrow; all obtusely pointed.
Bill brownish-black; toes brown, claws dusky. The general colour of the upper parts is bright cinnamon or reddish-orange; the head bronzed green, the wings dusky, the coverts glossed with green, the primaries with purplish; each of the tail-feathers has a narrow longitudinal lanceolate median streak toward the end. The loral space, a narrow band over the eye, another beneath it, and the auriculars are reddish-orange; the scale-like feathers of the throat and sides of the neck are splendent fire-red, purplish-red, yellowish-red, greenish-yellow or yellowish-green, according to the light in which they are viewed; behind them, on the lower part of the neck, is a broad band of reddish-white; the rest of the lower parts are like the upper, the abdomen inclining to white.