A1015    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1889. Darwinism: an exposition of the theory of natural selection with some of its applications. London & New York: Macmillan & Co.   Text

selection. The same remark will apply to the peculiar calls of birds, and even to the singing of the males. These may well have originated merely as a means of recognition between the two sexes of a species, and as an invitation from the male to the female bird. When the individuals of a species are widely scattered, such a call must be of great importance in enabling pairing to take place as early as possible, and thus the clearness, loudness, and individuality of the song becomes a useful character

A1015    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1889. Darwinism: an exposition of the theory of natural selection with some of its applications. London & New York: Macmillan & Co.   Text

about. In many larv great variability still exists, and in some there are two or more distinctly-coloured forms usually a dark and a light or a brown and a green form. The larva of the humming-bird hawk-moth (Macroglossa stellatarum) varies in this manner, and Dr. Weissmann raised five varieties from a batch of eggs from one moth. It feeds on species of bedstraw (Galium verum and G. mollugo), and as the green forms are less abundant than the brown, it has probably undergone some recent change of

F59    Book:     Darwin, C. R. 1890. Journal of researches into the natural history and geology of the various countries visited by H.M.S. Beagle etc. London: John Murray. First Murray illustrated edition.   Text   Image   PDF

is called Tapacolo, or cover your posterior; and well does the shameless little bird deserve its name; for it carries its tail more than erect, that is, inclined backwards towards its head. It is very common, and frequents the bottoms of hedgerows, and the bushes scattered over the barren hills, where scarcely another bird can exist. In its general manner of feeding, of quickly hopping out of the thickets [page] 289 HUMMING BIRD

F1146    Book:     Darwin, C. R. 1890. The expression of the emotions in man and animals. 2d ed. Edited by Francis Darwin. London: John Murray.   Text   Image   PDF

cases with mankind in the inheritance of tricks or unusual gestures, to which we shall presently recur. To those who admit the gradual evolution of species, a most striking instance of the perfection with which the most difficult consensual movements can be transmitted, is afforded by the humming-bird Sphinx-moth (Macroglossa); for this moth, shortly after its emergence from the cocoon, as shown by the bloom on its unruffled scales, may be seen poised stationary in the air, with its long hair

F59    Book:     Darwin, C. R. 1890. Journal of researches into the natural history and geology of the various countries visited by H.M.S. Beagle etc. London: John Murray. First Murray illustrated edition.   Text   Image   PDF

Fuego occasionally adds its cry; the creeper (Oxyurus) follows the intruder screaming and twittering; the humming-bird may be seen every now and then darting from side to side, and emitting, like an insect, its shrill chirp; lastly, from the top of some lofty tree the indistinct but plaintive note of the white-tufted tyrant-flycatcher (Myiobius) may be noticed. From the great preponderance in most countries of certain common genera of birds, such as the finches, one feels at first surprised at

F59    Book:     Darwin, C. R. 1890. Journal of researches into the natural history and geology of the various countries visited by H.M.S. Beagle etc. London: John Murray. First Murray illustrated edition.   Text   Image   PDF

delightfully cool and fragrant; and the drops of dew still glittered on the leaves of the large liliaceous plants, which shaded the streamlets of clear water. Sitting down on a block of granite, it was delightful to watch the various insects and birds as they flew past. The humming-bird seems particularly fond of such shady retired spots. Whenever I saw these little creatures buzzing round a flower, with their wings vibrating so rapidly as to be scarcely visible, I was reminded of the sphinx moths: their

A238    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1895. Natural selection and tropical nature: Essays on descriptive and theoretical biology. London: Macmillan.   Text   Image

allied species on Chimborazo ranges from fourteen thousand feet to the limits of perpetual snow at sixteen thousand feet elevation. It frequents a beautiful yellow-flowered alpine shrub belonging to the Asterace . On the extinct volcano of Chiriqui in Veragua a minute humming-bird, called the little Falme-bearer, has been only found inside the crater. Its scaled gorget is of such a flaming crimson that, as Mr. Gould remarks, it seems to have caught the last spark from the volcano before it was

A238    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1895. Natural selection and tropical nature: Essays on descriptive and theoretical biology. London: Macmillan.   Text   Image

Shell-mounds, ancient, in the Aleutian islands, 437 Shufeldt, Dr., on affinity of goat-suckers and owls, 123 (note) Sickle-bill humming-bird, 321 Sidgwick, Mr. A., on protective colouring of moths, 46 Simocyonid , 165 Sitta, sexual colouring and nidification of, 126 Sittella, sexual colouring and nidification of, 126 Size, correspondence of in tropical flowers and insects, 406 Skull, the Calaveras, 447 Sky, colour of not mentioned in oldest books, 413 Smith, Mr. Worthington, on mimicry in

A238    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1895. Natural selection and tropical nature: Essays on descriptive and theoretical biology. London: Macmillan.   Text   Image

one instant darting head-long into a flower, at the next describing a circle in the air with such rapidity that the eye, unable to follow the movement, loses sight of the bird until it again returns to the flower which at first attracted it attention. Of the little Vervain humming-bird of Jamaica, Mr. Gosse writes: I have sometimes watched with much delight the evolutions of this little species at the Moringa-tree.1 When only one is present, he pursues the round of the blossoms soberly enough

A238    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1895. Natural selection and tropical nature: Essays on descriptive and theoretical biology. London: Macmillan.   Text   Image

the little birds themselves within a few feet of him one moment, while the next they will be out of sight and hearing. Mr. Gould, who visited North America in order to see living humming-birds while preparing his great work on the family, remarks that the action of the wings reminded him of a piece of mechinery acted upon by a powerful spring. When poised before a flower, the motion is so rapid that a hazy semicircle of indistinctness on each side of the bird is all that is perceptible. Although

A238    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1895. Natural selection and tropical nature: Essays on descriptive and theoretical biology. London: Macmillan.   Text   Image

suspend their nests to creepers hanging over water, or even over the sea; and the Pichincha humming-bird once attached its nest to a strawrope hanging from the roof of a shed. Others again build nests of a hammock-form attached to the face of rocks by spiders' web; while the little forest-haunting species fasten their nests to the points or to the under-sides of palm-leaves or other suitable foliage. They lay only one or two white eggs. Geographical Distribution and Variation Most persons know

A238    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1895. Natural selection and tropical nature: Essays on descriptive and theoretical biology. London: Macmillan.   Text   Image

Bombylius, 69 Bonelli, Mr., on the Sappho comet humming-bird, 318 Brain of the savage but slightly less than that of civilised, man 188 size of, an important element of mental power, 188 of savage races larger than their needs require, 190, 193 of man and of anthropoid apes compared, 190 Broca, Professor Paul, on the fine crania of the cave men, 189 Bryophila glandifera and B. perla protectively coloured, 46 Bucerotid , sexual colouring and nidification of, 125 Bucconid , sexual colouring and

A238    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1895. Natural selection and tropical nature: Essays on descriptive and theoretical biology. London: Macmillan.   Text   Image

are found in the temperate (northern and southern) parts of the continent are migrants, which retire in the winter to the warmer lands near or within the tropics. In the extreme north of America two species are regular summer visitants, one on the east and the other on the west of the Rocky Mountains. On the east the common North American or Ruby-throated humming-bird extends through the United States and Canada, and as far as 57 north latitude, or considerably north of Lake Winnipeg; while

A238    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1895. Natural selection and tropical nature: Essays on descriptive and theoretical biology. London: Macmillan.   Text   Image

into the gullet, is not known. The only other birds with a similar tubular tongue are the sun-birds of the East, which, however, as we shall presently explain, have no affinity whatever with the humming-birds. Colours and Ornaments The colours of these small birds are exceedingly varied and exquisitely beautiful. The basis of the colouring may be said to be green, as in parrots; but whereas in the latter it is a silky green, in humming-birds it is always metalic. The majority of the species have

A238    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1895. Natural selection and tropical nature: Essays on descriptive and theoretical biology. London: Macmillan.   Text   Image

Barrington, on importance of protection to the female bird 138 372 Note A 205 372B Note B 209 ADDITIONAL MATTER IN THE PRESENT VOLUME. NATURAL SELECTION. PAGES Additional facts by Leroy, Spalding, Lowne, and Dixon on the Nest-Building and other Instincts of Birds 108 112 Dr. Abbott on Nesting of Baltimore Oriole 114 Professor Jeitteles and Mr. Henry Reeks on Alterations in Mode of Nest-Building 115 TROPICAL NATURE. Note on Dr. Shufeldt's Investigations into the Affinities of Swifts and Humming-Birds 337

A238    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1895. Natural selection and tropical nature: Essays on descriptive and theoretical biology. London: Macmillan.   Text   Image

to ourselves the process by which the changes have been brought about. We must first go back to an unknown but rather remote period, just before any humming-birds had reached these islands. At that time a species of this peculiar genus, Eustephanus, must have inhabited Chili; but we cannot be sure that it was identically the same as that which is now found there, because we know that species are always undergoing change to a greater or less degree. After perhaps many failures, one or more pairs

A238    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1895. Natural selection and tropical nature: Essays on descriptive and theoretical biology. London: Macmillan.   Text   Image

nesting habits in the herring-gull, 115 Representative groups, 8 of trogons, butterflies, etc., 10 Reptiles, protective colouring of, 40 abundant in tropics, 301 Rhamphastid , sexual colouring and nidification of, 125 Rhamphococcyx, 297 Rhinoceros, ancestral types of, 165 Ring-doves building nests in confinement, 110 River system, as illustrating self-adaptation, 149 Rudimentary organs, 17 SALVIN, Mr. Osbert, on a case of bird mimicry, 75 on the pugnacity of humming-birds, 319, 380 Saturnia pavonia

A238    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1895. Natural selection and tropical nature: Essays on descriptive and theoretical biology. London: Macmillan.   Text   Image

perching on the top of bare or isolated trees, render them very conspicuous objects. The Picari comprise many other interesting families as, for example, the puff-birds, the todies, and the humming-birds; but as these are all confined to America we can hardly claim them as characteristic of the tropics generally. Others, though very abundant in the tropics, like the kingfishers and the goatsuckers, are too well known in temperate lands to allow of their being considered as specially

A238    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1895. Natural selection and tropical nature: Essays on descriptive and theoretical biology. London: Macmillan.   Text   Image

half completed. In this small and comparatively barren island (a mere rock, as it is described by some authors) there would be no such constant abundance of food, and therefore no possibility of a large permanent population of humming-birds; while the climate would not differ materially from that of the larger island. Variation would therefore be checked, or might be stopped altogether; and we find the facts exactly correspond to this view. The male, which had already acquired his colour

A238    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1895. Natural selection and tropical nature: Essays on descriptive and theoretical biology. London: Macmillan.   Text   Image

patches, which vary considerably in shape and size in the more important orders and tribes, while the mode of arrangement agrees in all which are known to be closely related to each other; and thus the form of the feather-tracts or the pterylography, as it is termed, of a bird, is a valuable aid in doubtful cases of affinity. Now, if we apply these three tests to the humming-birds, [page] 33

A238    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1895. Natural selection and tropical nature: Essays on descriptive and theoretical biology. London: Macmillan.   Text   Image

impinged upon its sphere of existence. We may, therefore, assume that the Chilian humming-bird which migrated to Juan Fernandez was a stable form, hardly if at all different from the existing species which is termed Eustephanus galeritus. On the island it met with very changed but highly favourable conditions an abundant shrubby vegetation and a tolerably rich flora; less extremes of climate than on the mainland; and, most important of all, absolute freedom from the competition of rival species

A237.2    Book:     Wallace, A. R. 1905. My life: A record of events and opinions. London: Chapman and Hall. vol. 2.   Text   Image   PDF

gardens, between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and extending over ten degrees of latitude, I never once saw either a humming-bird or a rattlesnake, or even any living snake of any kind. In many places I was told that humming-birds were usually common in their gardens, but they hadn't seen any this year! This was my luck. And as to the rattlesnakes, I was always on the look out in likely places, and there are plenty still, but they are local. I was told of a considerable tract of land not far

A162    Book:     Seward, A. C. ed. 1909. Darwin and modern science. Essays in commemoration of the centenary of the birth of Charles Darwin and of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The origin of species. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.   Text   Image   PDF

through selection. This brings us to the last kind of secondary sexual characters, and the one in regard to which doubt has been most frequently expressed,—decorative colours and decorative forms, the brilliant plumage of the male pheasant, the humming-birds, and the bird of Paradise, as well as the bright colours of many species of butterfly, from the beautiful blue of our little Lycaenidae to the magnificent azure of the large Morphinae of Brazil. In a great many cases, though not by any means in

F1592.2    Book:     Marchant, James ed. 1916. Alfred Russel Wallace letters and reminiscences. London: Cassell. Volume 2.   Text   Image   PDF

MR. SAMUEL WADDINGTON TO A. R. WALLACE 7 Whitehall Gardens, London, S.W. February 19, 1901. Dear Sir, I trust you will forgive a stranger troubling you with a letter, but a friend has asked me whether, as a matter of fact, Darwin held that all living creatures descended from one and the same ancestor, and that the pedigree of a humming-bird and that of a hippopotamus would meet if traced far enough back. Can you tell me whether Darwin did teach this? I should have thought that as life was

F1592.2    Book:     Marchant, James ed. 1916. Alfred Russel Wallace letters and reminiscences. London: Cassell. Volume 2.   Text   Image   PDF

forms of the germs of life. But there is no such difference, the primitive germ-cells of man, fish or oyster being almost indistinguishable, formed of identical matter and going through identical primitive changes. As to the humming-bird and hippopotamus, there is no doubt whatever of a common origin if evolution is accepted at all; since both are vertebrates a very high type of organism whose ancestral forms can be traced back to a simple type much earlier than the common origin of mammals