An Instance of Hybridization in Hummingbirds, with Remarks on the Weight of Generic Characters in the Trochilidæ

Abstract

WHILE collecting in the vicinity of Nicasio, Marin County, for the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology on February 26, 1909, I a small hummingbird which I took to be Selasphorus alleni. My attention has been called to the fact, however, that it is a hybrid, probably the result of a cross between Selasphorus alleni and Calypte anna. According to Ridgway, it was with little doubt such a hybrid upon whicb Gould based his description of Selasphorus floreeji (Mon. Troch., pt. xxiii, Sept. 1, 1861, pl. 10; Vol. III, 1861, pl. 139), from a specimen taker at Bolanos, State of Oaxaca, Mexico. There have been to my knowledge previous to this date three definite records only of the taking of this hybrid. One of these is the type of Selasphorus floresii, taken at Bolanos. The second is a bird found by Walter E. Bryant in a taxidermist's shop in San Francisco (first recorded in 'Forest and Stream,' XXVI, June, 1886, p. 426). This specimen was shot by a boy near San Francisco, aud had been mounted to serve as an ornament on a hat. The third record is that of the taking of a male specimeni at Haywards, California, by W. Otto Emerson (Condor, III, May, 1901, p. 68). Through the courtesy of the latter I have seen this bird. It is almost identical in coloration and size with the hybrid taken by me at Nicasio, though it resembles Calypte anna even more than the Marin County bird.