Fruit-Eating Hummingbirds
Fruit-eating Hummingbirds
As I have access to but a small part of the literature pertaining to the hummingbirds, it is quite possible that the item now recorded may simply corroborate earlier observations of such a habit. But in my experience it is original.
Heliodoxa jaeula henryi is one of the largest, as well as one of the most splendid, of the fifty-odd hummingbirds now known from Costa Rica. Normally, it is confined to the humid sub-tropical zone of the Caribbean watershed. On May 2, 1926, on the slope of the Volcano Turrialba, at an altitude of 3500 feet, and reached from the railroad station of Peralta, I met with several individuals. They were feeding upon the fruit of a small tree (possibly Eugenia). This fruit was of the size and form of an elderberry, and quite ripe. The birds would alight upon a branch within reach of the fruit, sometimes on the fruiting stem even; then slowly turning their heads toward the fruit, quickly pluck it from the stems.
Austin Smith
San Jose, Costa Rica, June 2, 1926
