EUSTEPHANUS FERNANDENSIS.

Cinnamon Firecrown.

Trochilus fernandensis, King, Proc. Zool. Soc. part 1. p. 30.—Gray, Handl. B. i. p. 147,
no. 1899.

Trochilus stokes, King, tom. cit. p. 30.—Lesson, Troch. p. 135. pl. 50—Jard. Naturalist’s
Library, Humming Birds, ii. p. 55, pl. 5.

Ornismya cinnamomea, Gerv. Mag. de Zool. v. Oiseaux, pl. 43.

Ornismya robinson, Lesson, Oiseaux-Mouches, Velins, pl. 7.—De Lattre & Less. Rev.
Zool. 1839, p. 18.

Mellisuga stokesn, Gray, Gen. B. i. p. 113.

Mellisuga grayi, Gray, tom. cit. p. 113.

Sephanoides stokesn, Bonap. Consp. Av. i. p. 82.—Id. Rev. et Mag. de Zool. 1854, p. 256.

Sephanordes fernandensis, Bonap. Consp. Av. i. p. 82.—Id. Rev. et Mag. de Zool. 1854,
p: 265.

Eustephanus stokes, Gould, Monogr. Trochil. iv. pl. 266.

Justephanus fernandensis, Gould, Monogr. Trochil. iv. pl. 267.—Cab. & Heine, Mus. Hein.
ii. p. 76.—Scl. & Salv. Nomencl. Av. Neotr. p. 90.—Reed, Ibis, 1874, poe
Muls. Oiseaux-Mouches, p. 76.—Elliot, Synopsis Trochil. p. 93.

 

Amonesr the advantages which the issue of the present ‘Supplement’ bestows on me may be reckoned
the opportunity which it gives of correcting certain mistakes in the ‘Monograph,’ which were due to the
imperfect knowledge possessed by ornithologists at the period when the latter work was written. Such a
case is the present, in which, from lack of the requisite knowledge, I figured the two sexes of the Cinnamon
Firecrown as distinct species, under the names of L. fernandensis and E. stokesii; and now that Iam giving
for the first time a Plate of the more recently discovered L. /eyboldi, 1 have seized the opportunity to
refigure the two sexes of EL. fernandensis.

The Juan-Fernandez group of islands was for a long time almost a ¢evra incognita to the naturalist; and
until Dr. Sclater published a list in ‘The Ibis’ of 1871 we were ignorant of the number of birds inhabiting
them. The largest island of the group is Mas-a-tierra, or Juan Fernandez, which is situated about 380
miles from the coast of Chili; and the second is named Mas-a-fuera, which is about 450 miles from the
Chilian coast. There are also a number of small islets belonging to the group.

On these two islands no less than three species of Humming-birds are known to exist, one of them,
E. galeritus, a well-known Chilian species, being found on Mas-a-tierra. To this same island, however, is
confined Eustephanus fernandensis, while £. leyboldi inhabits Mas-a-fuera. The group was first visited by
a naturalist in 1825, when Captain King procured some Humming-birds on Mas-a-tierra, and named them
as belonging to two distinct species, without apparently suspecting they were sexes of the same bird.
Indeed so different in style of coloration are the male and female of E. fernandensis, that any one might be
excused for considering them distinct. When Mr. Bridges visited the same island in 1854, he brought back a
large number of specimens both of L. fernandensis and of the so-called Z. stokesii, but without a single
indication as to the sexes of the specimens, which were examined by me at the time. According to
Dr. Sclater, however, Mr. Bridges was quite aware that E. stokesic was only the female bird; for he
himself informed the late M. Jules Verreaux of the fact in a conversation he had with him in Paris after his
return from South America (Ibis, 1871, p. 179, note). Ican only say that not the slightest indication of
this was noted on Mr. Bridges’s specimens ; nor was I informed of it by Mr. Cuming, who was his agent.

Mr. E. C. Reed, of the Santiago Museum, who visited Juan Fernandez in 1870 and again in 1872, says
that he dissected all the specimens he shot, and found that in all cases the red birds were males, and the
ereen females. ‘It is” he remarks, “a very strong bird. It hovers over flowers, then darts away like an
i. to a distance of several hundred yards; I have never seen any other small bird fly so rapidly.
It feeds principally from the beautiful purple flowers of the a It has a loud eae Chive
Mr. Bridges found the bird so fearless of man that it could be killed with a stick, so close did it approach.

On a closer acquaintance with man it would appear to have become more shy during the twenty years that

have elapsed since that gentleman visited the island.