The very dark shade of the green under-surface, coupled with the metallic green forehead, which is darker than in D. ludoviciæ, serves to render this species recognizable from the last-named bird.
It was described by Mr. Osbert Salvin from Veraguan skins collected by Enrique Arcé; and I have a skin in my collection said to be from Costa Rica; but there may be some doubt as to the correctness of this locality.
Mr. Salvin published the followwing remarks when first calling attention to the distinctness of the Veraguan bird:—
There seems to be considerable individual variation between members of this species; or I should be inclined to separate, as a distinct race, the bird found in Veragua, a single specimen only of which has as yet reached me. ‘The shining forehead is considerably darker and of a bluer shade, the bill longer, and the under plumage blacker than in a New Granadian specimen of D. ludoviciæ before me; the wings, too, are shorter. Should the receipt of additional specimens confirm the constancy of these distinctions, I propose for this race the name of Dorifera veraguensis.
The Plate represents two males and a female bird, drawn from specimens lent to me by Messrs. Salvin and Godman.
Featuring all 422 illustrated species from John Gould’s A Monograph of the Trochilidæ, or Family of Humming-Birds arranged by color.
Humming-Birds
