White-vented Golden-throat
Illustration not included in supplement volume
For our knowledge of the existence of this species we are indebted to the researches of Mr. A. R. Wallace and Mr. Edward Bartlett, the former having obtained examples at Babati, on the Rio Negro, and the latter on the river Huallaga in Eastern Peru.
It is most nearly allied to the Polytmus viridissimus of this Monograph (see vol. i. Introduction, pl. lxxxv., and vol. iv. p. 231, and 8vo edition of Introduction, p. 127), but differs from that well-known bird in its under tail-coverts being pure white.
The specific appellation assigned to it first appeared in Messrs. Sclater and Salvin’s “List of the Birds collected by Mr. Wallace on the Lower Amazon and Rio Negro,” and subsequently in the same gentlemen’s “Catalogue of Birds collected by Mr. E. Bartlett on the river Huallaga, Eastern Peru.”
Male. Entire upper and under surface pale flowery green, with the exception of the head, which is brown, and the crissum, which is white; wing-coverts golden green; wing purplish brown; tail bright green; bill light fleshy brown. Total length 3\(\frac{5}{8}\) inches, bill \(\frac{3}{4}\), wing 2\(\frac{1}{4}\), tail \(\frac{1}{2}\), tarsus \(\frac{3}{16}\).
Female. Much smaller than the male, but similarly coloured, except that the three outer tail-feathers on each side are tipped with white, like those of the female of Polytmus viridissimus.
[R. B. S.]
Featuring all 422 illustrated species from John Gould’s A Monograph of the Trochilidæ, or Family of Humming-Birds arranged by color.
Humming-Birds
