This species was first made known to science in the “Revue Zoologique” for 1839, by MM. Lesson and De Lattre, and was by them dedicated to M. Henri De Lattre, the brother of the latter.
Guatemala, if not the exclusive habitat of this species, is certainly the locality in which it is found in the greatest avundance. The specimens in my collection, and all others that I have seen, have been sent direct from the city of Guatemala, by Don Jose Constancia, and were, I believe, collected in its environs. The late M. De Lattre states that he found it in the neighbourhood of Guatepec, where it is very rare; that it lives exclusively among the great trees of the forest, and that the sexes are usually met with separate from each other.
The Delattria Henrici may be distinguished from its congeners, and from every other known species by the subdued lilaceous red of its throat and by the sombre brown colour of its under surface.
The total absence of the throat-mark in the female at once distinguishes that sex: in other respects the plumage of the male and female closely assimilates.
The male has the head, all the upper surface and the wing-coverts dark bronzy green, fading into a sombre brownish hue on the rump; wings purplish brown; tail very dark blackish brown, the lateral feathers tipped with greyish brown; behind the eye a semi-crescentic mark of dull white; ear-coverts brown; throat subdued lilaceous red; under surface greyish brown, washed with bronze on the flanks; under tail-coverts dark brown with lighter edges.
The female differs in having no trace of the lilaceous red mark on the throat, that part being brown lightly washed with buff.
The figures represent the two sexes of the natural size. The curious orchid is the Cycnoches ventricosum.
Featuring all 422 illustrated species from John Gould’s A Monograph of the Trochilidæ, or Family of Humming-Birds arranged by color.
Humming-Birds
