From Osbert Salvin 20 June 1868
16 The Grove | Boltons | S.W.
20 June 1868.—
My dear Sir,
I must apologize for so long having delayed sending you the enclosed answers to your queries.1 I hope I have answered them to your satisfaction I have not in every case been able to ascertain the exact numbers of the specimens from which I drew my notes as to the relative proportions of the sexes of the Humming birds but you will see in the list I send where this information has not been supplied.—
Humming birds fight a great deal but I never saw one kill another.—2
If there is any point which I have not answered in the questions you put me, I am quite ready to be put in the “witness box again & be cross-questioned.
yrs very truly | Osbert Salvin.
[Enclosure 1]
I came across an old observation the other day which may interest you. I once shot in Norway a Common Sandpiper the nail of the hind toe of which was clasped by a bivalve freshwater shell. A suggestive mode of an accidental means of dispersal.
[Enclosure 2]
1 Trogon mexicanus is quite a distinct species from Calurus resplendens (or as it ought to be called Pharomacrus mocinno) & has no elongated tail coverts3 The only positive evidence about the breeding of Ph. mocinno I was ever able to obtain is published in the Ibis for 1861, p. 66. A friend of mine Mr R. Owen was informed of a nest in the forests near which he was staying & he sent his servant to see after it who brought back two eggs & the hen bird The eggs were in a hole in a decayed tree to which there was only one entrance. There were no signs of a nest beyond a layer of small chips of decayed wood on which the eggs were laid.—4
The bird is not found in Mexico & I never heard that DeSaussure visited Guatemala & my own belief is that the story of the male sitting with its tail hanging out of one hole & looking out of another is imaginary & that very probably the male bird does not sit at all.5 I once however took a nest of T. mexicanus which was in a hole of a tree out of which the male bird flew.
2. Since I described Chamæpetes unicolor I have received a female specimen which has the wing primaries cut but not quite so much as in the male, and I have noticed that a very young example of Aburria carunculata has the same feature to a slight degree so that this character must not be ascribed to the males alone. I, however, only observed the males making the strange noise I described in P.Z.S.6
1st Primary of Chamæpetes unicolor
It may be worthy of your notice that I do not think that the noise made by Penelope nigra was produced by the ordinary process of flight when passing from one tree to another it struck me as if it was done “on purpose” just as a snipe “drums” at certain seasons.7
3. The males only of Selasphorus platycercus have the excised primary (1st only)
neither the females Nor the young males in their first plumage possess this character. My attention was first attracted to the noise when observing a male which used to make periodical visits to some flowers in a court yard the sound was not produced when hovering but in changing position from flower to flower & especially when flying out of the yard over the wall. It did not strike me that the sound was intentionally made to attract the attention of the females.8
4. Both sexes of the S American genera of Pigeons Peristera and Leptoptila. have the primaries excised but though they make a whistling noise when they fly I did not observe that sound was greater than that produced by other species of Pigeons which have not got this character.9
[Enclosure 3]
♂ | ♀ | total no collected | |||||
Phaethornis adolphi—10 | 7 | 2 | 9. | ||||
Campylopterus hemileucurus | 20 | 8 | 28. | — | |||
Petasophora delphino.—11 | 9 | 2 | 11. | ||||
x Eugenes fulgens— | 18 | 1 | 19 | ||||
Myiabeilla typica—12 | 20 | 1 | 21. | ||||
x Thaumastura henicura.—13 | 6 | 10 | 16 | ||||
Trochilus colubris | Dueñas | uncertain | |||||
proportion stated 1♂:4♀ | |||||||
Coban14 | 8 | 8 | 16. | ||||
Lophornis helenæ.— | 17 | 1 | 18. | — | |||
Amazillia | rufferi—15 | 7 | 0 | 7 | |||
" | devillii—16 | uncertain | |||||
proportion given 4♂:1♀ | |||||||
Thaumantias candidus—17 | 30 | 6 | 36. | ||||
Eupherusa eximia— | 30 | 9 | 39. |
[Enclosure 4]
x Eugenes fulgens
During my subsequent stay in Guatemala18 I observed another female but only one so that of this species two females only came under observation though I was constantly on the look out for them in districts where the males abounded. Of the males I must have seen dozens as at certain seasons they were very abundant.—
x Thaumastura henicura I find I made the following note respecting this species when I noted the first male specimen obtained. “Though I have, perhaps, shot as many as twenty females of this species this is the first male I have killed. It is however not uncommon.” I afterwards found a small colony of males some 6 or 7 of which searched the flowers of a row of willow trees.–
CD annotations
Footnotes
Bibliography
Birds of the world: Handbook of the birds of the world. By Josep del Hoyo et al. 17 vols. Barcelona: Lynx editions. 1991–2013.
Columbia gazetteer of the world: The Columbia gazetteer of the world. Edited by Saul B. Cohen. 3 vols. New York: Columbia University Press. 1998.
Descent: The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1871.
Elliot, Daniel Giraud. 1879. A classification and synopsis of the Trochilidae. Washington: Smithsonian Institution.
ODNB: Oxford dictionary of national biography: from the earliest times to the year 2000. (Revised edition.) Edited by H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. 60 vols. and index. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2004.
Salvin, Osbert. 1860. Notes on the humming-birds of Guatemala. Ibis 2: 259–72.
Salvin, Osbert. 1867. On some collections of birds from Veragua. [Read 24 January 1867.] Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London (1867): 129–61.
Swainson, William. 1836–7. On the natural history and classification of birds. 2 vols. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longman; John Taylor.
Summary
Shot a sandpiper in Norway, the hind toe of which was clasped by a freshwater bivalve.
Sends replies to CD’s queries about sex ratios in humming-birds.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-6253
- From
- Osbert Salvin
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Brompton
- Source of text
- DAR 177: 18, DAR 205.3: 288 (Letters), DAR 84.2: 79-82, 85–6, DAR 86: C22, C24
- Physical description
- ALS 2pp † encl 8pp †
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 6253,” accessed on 24 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-6253.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 16