Hypuroptila urochriysia
Hypuroptila urochriysia
Golden-tailed Plumeleteer
About this plate
Panama
I possess a single example of this new species of Hypuroptila, which was shot by M. Warszewicz in the neighbourhood of Panama; but the precise locality I have not been able to ascertain.
I have delayed describing this bird until the present moment (May 1861), in the hope of receiving other examples, and of obtaining some information respecting its habits and economy. In point of size it is about equal to the H. Buffoni, to which it also bears a close resemblance in the plumage of the body; its rich golden-bronzy tail will, however, always distinguish it from that and every other known species. I have no doubt that I have placed the bird in the right genus, although the under tail-coverts are not so fully developed in my specimen as in H. Buffoni or H. cæruleogaster; this, however, I conceive to be due to imperfection, occasioned by some of them having been lost in the process of skinning, rather than to any other cause.
I am unable to say if any difference occurs in the colouring of the sexes; but if we may judge from analogy, the female will be found to resemble those of H. Buffoni and H. cæruleogaster.
Head and upper surface dark green, becoming of a bronzy hue on the wing- and tail-coverts; wings purplish brown; tail rich golden bronze both above and beneath; throat and breast grass-green; abdomen bronzy green; thighs, vent, and under tail-coverts pure white; upper mandible black, lower mandible fleshy red with a black tip; tarsi either yellow or flesh-colour.
The figures are of the natural size. The plant is the Pitcairnia undulatifolia.
References
- Hypuroptila urochrysia, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., May 14, 1861.
Twelve ways of seeing
- upright 1.49 : 1
- published 1850
- Pl. 90, Vol. II
Not a catalogue entry but a way of looking: how to stand, what to notice, how the line was cut, when it flowers, where it came from, who made it — and then the poems and the classics that taught China to see the same flower. Read the twelve in order and the plate opens.
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First Look
论画以形似，见与儿童邻。
—— 宋·苏轼《书鄢陵王主簿所画折枝》
To judge painting by likeness alone is the view of a child.
The sheet is vertical: the eye climbs and settles on the bird. Take the posture before the plumage. Then step in close: watch where colour meets line, and whether the line ever breaks. Third, find the darkest small patch: the whole tonal order is measured from there.
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Name and Thing
The binomial is Hypuroptila urochriysia: the first word is the genus it belongs among, the second the epithet that sets it apart. Two words carry a whole provenance. No established Chinese name exists, so it is cited by its binomial alone.
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Form and Colour
The smallest of birds: a needle-fine bill, a forked tubular tongue, wings beating so fast the bird hovers and even flies backwards. Its colour is not pigment but structure — light bent by feather barbules, changing with the angle.No colour group is recorded. Read the outline, then the colour layers, then the brush.
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Composition
Tall and narrow, the bird perched mid-branch with generous margins above and below. (about 1.49 : 1) No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. Cover the margins with your thumb and the plate suffocates; uncover them and the flower breathes again.
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Line and Colour
In the later nineteenth century chromolithography took over: colour printed rather than painted, line demoted. Craft leaves franker evidence than inscriptions.
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Season
In tropical America they are present all year, their season set by flowers; temperate hummingbirds follow the bloom north and back, thousands of kilometres a year. The year 1850 on the plate is that of publication, not of flowering — the gathering came a year or two earlier. The plate records ten days of peak; the other three hundred are leaf, fruit and rest.
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Provenance
Americas only, from southern Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, richest in the Andes. China has no hummingbirds and no classical record of them; the name arrives with late-Qing travel writing. In the same volume the kin are shelved together; set several plates side by side.
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The Book and the Hand
“Gould's Hummingbirds” was drawn by John Gould and published 1849-1887. This plate is Pl. 90, Vol. II, book page 90. The image is public domain; the hand-colouring is still one person's hand.
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Poetic Resonance
穿花蛱蝶深深见，点水蜻蜓款款飞。
—— 唐·杜甫《曲江二首》
Butterflies thread the flowers, seen deep within; dragonflies touch the water and fly on, slow and deliberate.
The poem gives the mood first and the picture supplies the form; set the line beside the plate and the bird itself becomes its resting point.
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The Written Tradition
竖划三寸，当千仞之高；横墨数尺，体百里之迥。
—— 南朝宋·宗炳《画山水序》
A vertical stroke of three inches stands for a cliff of a thousand fathoms; a few feet of ink holds a hundred li. Smallness of scale was never the obstacle.
Gould's Hummingbirds (1849–1887) used hand-coloured lithography over gold leaf so the iridescence survived on paper — a monument to Victorian printing and collecting alike. You need not parse every word: take the line, and the flower acquires a second face.
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Symbolism
For the Aztecs the hummingbird was warrior and sun; for Victorian Europe it was the ultimate ornament, millions killed for breast jewellery. China has no tradition here — and that blank is itself a history of exchange. In a flora it is a species first and a symbol second; the order is worth keeping.
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What to Take Away
Appreciation is not knowledge but habit — one more look each time. Two centuries on, the plant may still flower in some garden; the one on this sheet stopped in the season of 1850.
