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Mangrove Hummingbird, plate CLXXXIV

The mangrove hummingbird is another remarkable plate in John J. Audubon’s Birds of America. This collection was supposed to include every known North American bird. Based on Audubon’s observations in Ornithological Biography, however, he wasn’t sure the species was native to the United States. We know today that it is a South American species that very rarely reaches farther north than Panama. 

Audubon writes exuberantly about this hummingbird: “Such in most cases is the brilliancy of their plumage, that I am unable to find apt objects of comparison unless I resort to the most brilliant gems and the richest metals.”* The black-throated mango, as it is known today, is dark and fairly large – measuring about 10 centimetres from the tip of its bill to the tip of its tail. This hummingbird inhabits tropical lowland evergreen forest edges. 

The painting shows three males and two females, modelled on two specimens from Key West, Florida, that Audubon had received from a fellow naturalist. He depicts some defining features of the species, such as their agility in feeding and their needle-like arched bill. The birds are hovering around a spray of trumpet creeper (Campsis grandiflora).

Details  

• This is plate CLXXXIV (184) of the collection.  
• The plate is part of set number 37. 
• The plate measures 46.7 cm high and 35 cm wide. It is printed on paper that measures 97.2 cm high by 64.7 cm wide.
• It was engraved, printed and coloured by Robert Havell in 1833. 
• The current name for this bird is black-throated mango, Anthracothorax nigricollis. 

* John James Audubon, Ornithological Biography, or an Account of the Habits of the Birds of the United States of America, Accompanied by Descriptions of the Objects Represented in the Work Entitled The Birds of America, and Interspersed with Delineations of American Scenery and Manners, Volume 2, Adam Black, Edinburgh, 1831, p. 480.