30 BULLETIlSr 17 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



At intervals the struggling prisoner drew its bill farther into the egg, 

 then suddenly pushed it outward, bringing the keeled upper edge, 

 armed with a rather insignificant egg-tooth or 'pip,' against the edge 

 of the shell at one end of the hole, and breaking off a small fragment 

 at the outward thrust. In its squirmings the bird, impelling itself 

 in some manner I could not determine, rotated imperceptibly slowly 

 in the shell, in such a way that the head, turned under one wing, 

 moved backward and the upper edge of the bill was constantly brought 

 to bear upon a fresh portion of the shell, which was chipped off at 

 the next outward thrust. Occasionally the struggling birdling 

 emitted a weak cry. Thus bit by bit the ragged-margined aperture 

 was lengthened until it extended about two-thirds of the way around 

 the egg, when the struggles of the bird succeeded in cracking the 

 remainder, and the large end of the shell fell off as a cap. Then 

 the naked creature wormed its way out into my palm, where it lay 

 exhausted by its continued effort." 



In another nest the last egg to be laid hatched in 13 days. The 

 young, when first hatched, "were blind, black-skinned, and without 

 any trace of feathers." Wlien the nestlings were 6 days old they 

 were "both bristling with long pinfeathers. The plumes of the one 

 that was the older by a few hours were already beginning to peep 

 through the tips of these pinfeathers." Later in the day, the feathers 

 had burst their sheaths with amazing rapidity, and the young bird 

 "was already well covered. The back and belly, save for a naked 

 line down the middle of the latter, bore a soft, downy black plumage. 

 Broad ends of the flight feathers of both wings and tail now showed." 



From this time on, the young birds became more lively and left 

 the nest when approached, climbing about among the branches or 

 down onto the ground to hide in the grass. They were brooded by 

 one of the parents until they were a week old, returning to the nest 

 at night. But "the following two nights they remained in the nest- 

 ing tree but did not return to the nest to sleep. They could not yet 

 fly and had entered a half scansorial, half terrestrial stage of exist- 

 ence. Wlien they were 10 days old I tried to catch them for a 

 photograph, but they hopped from limb to limb with such agility 

 that, protected as they were by the sharp thorns, I was unable to 

 secure them. When they were 10 days old they could make short 

 flights from branch to branch of the same bush. Their bills were 

 smooth, without any grooves, and their cheeks were bare of feathers." 



All through his account Mr. Skutch emphasizes the affection that 

 is shown by all the members of the ani family for one another. 

 While he was watching the second nest of the pair on which the 

 above observations were made, something very unusual, if not en- 

 tirely unique, happened. One of the young from the previous brood, 



