Thalurania furcata
叉尾妍蜂鸟
Thalurania furcata
Cayenne Wood-Nymph
About this plate
Cayenne and Guiana
It is impossible to say with certainty whether the bird described and figured by Brisson and the older authors be identical with the species here represented or not; if it be, they are certainly quite wrong in stating Jamaica to be one of its habitats, an error which I am surprised to find repeated by Lesson, Jardine, and other recent authorities; for so exclusively, in fact, does the bird inhabit the continent of South America, that I believe it never occurs in any of the islands, not even the adjacent one of Trinidad; it enjoys, indeed, a very restricted range, being confined to Cayenne and Guiana, and scarcely extending so far as the Amazon towards Brazil.
The bird of the same form and style of colouring which is found about Para, and which is usually considered to be the same, possesses, in the opinion of some, sufficient differences to warrant its being considered distinct, and to receive a separate appellation, that of T. furcatoïdes. Judging from the great numbers that are annually skinned and sent to Europe, this bird must be very numerous in Cayenne; it frequently arrives in hundreds at a time, consequently a considerable commerce exists between the dealers in Paris and the collectors in Cayenne. Being an exceedingly pretty and elegant species, great care is taken to obtain it only at that season of the year when it is in its finest plumage, and much attention is devoted to the making up of the skins. As is usual with all the members of this genus, the female is totally different from the male in colour, and considerably so in the form and character of the tail. It is surprising how few of this sex are prepared, which is doubtless due to their plumage being too dull and unattractive to demand attention.
The male has the crown of the head, back of the neck, back and wing-coverts black in some lights, deep green in others; throat shining grass-green; band across the back and shoulders violet; under surface beautiful deep violet-blue; wings purplish brown; tail bluish black; under tail-coverts brown, margined with grey.
The Plate represents both sexes of the size of life. The plant is the Opuntia Salmiana.
References
- Mellisuga Jamaicensis, violacea, cauda bifurca, Briss. Orn., tom. iii. pp. 728, 732. pl. xxxvii. fig. 6.—Id., 8vo, tom. ii. p. 40.
- Trochilus furcatus, Gmel., Edit. Linn. Syst. Nat., tom. i. p. 486.—Lath. Ind. Orn., vol. i. p. 304. —Jard. Nat. Lib., Humming-birds, vol. i. p. 125. pl. 23.—Vieill. Eney. Méth. Orn., part ii. p. 572.—Shaw, Gen. Zool., vol. viii. p. 309.—Ib., Steph. Cont., vol. xiv. p. 239.
- L’Oiseau-mouche violet à queue fourchue, Buff. Hist. Nat. des Ois., tom. vi. p. 37.—Vieill. Ois. Dor., tom. i. p. 71. pl. 34.
- L’Oiseau-mouche à queue fourchue, Buff. Pl. Enl. 599. fig. 2.
- Ornismya furcata, Less. Hist. Nat. des Ois.-mou., pp. xiv, 82. pl. 18.—Ib. Ind. Gen. et Syn. des Ois. du gen. Trochilus, p. xxij—Ib. Traité d’Orn. p. 278.
- Polytmus furcatus, Gray and Mitch. Gen. of Birds, vol. i. p. 108, Polytmus, sp. 61.
- Thalurana furcata, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., part xx. p. 8.—Bonap. Rev. et Mag. de Zool. 1854, p. 254.—Reichenb. Aufz. der Col., p. 7.
- Thalurana fureatus, Bonap. Consp. Gen. Av., p. 76, Thalurania, sp. 1.
- Lesser Fork-tailed Humming-bird, Lath. Gen. Syn., vol. ii. p. 75?—Ib. Gen. Hist., vol. iv. p. 297? Fureated Humming-bird, Shaw, Nat. Mise., vol. xi. pl. 397.
Twelve ways of seeing
- upright 1.43 : 1
- published 1850
- Pl. 101, 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
搜尽奇峰打草稿。
—— 清·石涛《苦瓜和尚画语录》
Exhaust the strange peaks, and then make the sketch.
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 Thalurania furcata: the first word is the genus it belongs among, the second the epithet that sets it apart. Two words carry a whole provenance. The Chinese name 叉尾妍蜂鸟 is a modern rendering of the Latin, not an old garden name.
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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. Three things fix the habit: leaf arrangement, tepal count, and how the flower is borne.
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Composition
Tall and narrow, the bird perched mid-branch with generous margins above and below. (about 1.43 : 1) No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. Blank paper is not unfinished work: it is where the eye rests.
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Line and Colour
In the later nineteenth century chromolithography took over: colour printed rather than painted, line demoted. There is evidence on the back too: the plate mark pressed into the paper, the slight relief of the pigment, lines worn shallow in a later printing.
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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. 101, Vol. II, book page 101. The image is public domain; the hand-colouring is still one person's hand.
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Poetic Resonance
夫列子御风而行，泠然善也，旬有五日而后反。
—— 《庄子·逍遥游》
Liezi rode the wind and came back after fifteen days, so light was his going.
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. Keep the line; it will surface the next time you meet the same plant.
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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. Flower language was added later; the flower knows nothing of it, and that innocence is part of its power.
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What to Take Away
Next time you watch a bird: posture first, then where the plumage is deepest, and only then the field guide. Two centuries on, the plant may still flower in some garden; the one on this sheet stopped in the season of 1850.
