Uranomitra viridifrons
安第斯蜂鸟属
Uranomitra viridifrons
Green-fronted Azure-crown
About this plate
In his arrangement of the genus Uranomitra, Mr. Elliot places this species in his first section of the genus along with U. quadricolor and U. violiceps, all three species having the underparts white.
The first-named has the tail olive-green, the second has it bronzy red, whereas in U. viridifrons the tail is described as metallic golden with the tip bronzy red; and the species further differs in the green colour of the head.
The type specimen is in Mr. Elliot’s collection and came from Putla in Mexico. He describes it as follows:—
Forehead dark green, metallic in some lights, centre of crown dark grey; upper part of body brilliant light green; lower part of back bronzy brown; wings purple; upper tail-coverts and tail rich coppery bronze; flanks grass-green; entire underparts pure white; bill reddish, black at tips. Total length 3
inches, wing 2 , tail 1 , culmen .
The Plate represents the male in two positions, and was drawn from the type specimen, which Mr. Elliot kindly lent us when he was in England.
[R. B. S.]
References
- Cyanomyia viridifrons, Elliot, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. (4) viii. p. 267 (1871).—Scl. & Salv. Nomencl. Av. Neotr. p. 91 (1873).—Mulsant, Hist. Nat. Oiseaux-Mouches, i. p. 224 (1874).
- Uranomitra viridifrons, Elliot, Synopsis of the Humming-Birds, p. 197 (1878).
Twelve ways of seeing
- slightly upright 1.29 : 1
- published 1887
- Pl. 409, Suppl. Vol.
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
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.
Slightly taller than wide; the eye lands on the bird's head, a little above centre. 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 Uranomitra viridifrons: 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 安第斯蜂鸟属 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. A single plant, laid out with nothing hidden.
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Composition
Slightly taller than wide, the bird set a little above centre, the eye landing at head and bill. (about 1.29 : 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. 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 1887 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. The volume was made in 1849-1887, when most of this knowledge came from living plants under glass.
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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. 409, Suppl. Vol., book page 409. 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
庭下如积水空明，水中藻荇交横，盖竹柏影也。
—— 宋·苏轼《记承天寺夜游》
The courtyard seemed flooded with clear water, weeds crossing in it — in fact the shadows of bamboo and cypress.
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. The difference is not of quality but of question: Europe asks what it is, China asks whom it resembles.
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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
If you keep one line, keep Guo Xi's: from afar its momentum, up close its texture. A flora exists to be consulted; look long enough and you forget to consult — someone in 1887 gave a whole day to a single flower.
