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mango etymologies



	In addition to meaning the tropical fruit that we all know,
colloquial Spanish has two other meanings for 'mango'. One of these is
'money', and the other is 'a stunningly attractive person'. 

	Thus, 'to be without mango' is an idiom meaning 'to be broke';  'to
BE a mango' is 'to be a real hunk', or 'to be a real stunner.' I would
imagine that some central american hummers are called 'mangoes' in the
second colloquial sense of this word: even on a cloudy, cheerless day
like yesterday the green on our mango's back was shining bright. It
is, indeed, a stunner. The generic, popular name for hummers in
Spanish is either 'colibri' or 'picaflor'--a flower prober.

	The other connection I can imagine between the hummer and its popular
name is purely visual: its plump and curved body shape and green color
(minus bill and tail) is indeed that of a mango--an unripe one, that
is.

	I looked in the field guide to the birds of Costa Rica and found that
in its central american range the the green-breasted mango prefers
open savannahs, rather than closed forests. It is apparently a
Caribbean slope bird, not a Pacific slope one. THus our mango seems to
have found a wintering ground which is very close to its native
habitat, for the subdivision where it is hanging our has almost no
large trees, and lots of open lawn area. THe largest trees in the
immediate vicinity of the feeders in Concord are only about twenty
feet high. The guide also mentions that the green-breasted mango is
actually benefitting from deforestation since it prefers secondary
growth. I did not, however, find a range map showing just what its
normal range is. Does anyone know?

Shantanu Phukan