26 BULLETIN 17 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



CROTOPHAGA SULCIROSTRIS SULCIROSTRIS Swainson 



GROOVE-BILLED ANI 



PlATES 1, 2 



HABITS 



This Central and South American species was added to our fauna 

 by George B. Sennett (1879), who secured a fine male on May 19, 

 1878, near Lomita, Tex,, while it was "flying about the low bushes in 

 open chaparral. It was very shy, flying in and about the bushes, and 

 was shot on the wing." The only one I have ever seen did not seem 

 at all shy. I was sitting down, quietly watching some Texas spar- 

 rows that were hopping around on the ground near me, in some 

 thick brush bordering a resaca near Brownsville, Tex., when one of 

 these curious birds appeared. It seemed more curious than shy, as 

 it moved about slowly in the bushes, looking me over; it remained 

 in my vicinity for some time and I could have shot it easily. It is 

 said to show a preference for thick underbrush in the vicinity of 

 water, or for lightly wooded swamps. 



In. his proposed work on the birds of the Caribbean lowlands, 

 Alexander F. Skutch devotes two long and very interesting chapters 

 to the home life of the groove-billed ani. He has kindly placed at 

 my disposal his unpublished manuscript and allowed me to quote 

 freely from it. As to its haunts, he writes : "The variety of the habitat 

 of the anis is enormous and their only restriction seems to be that 

 they do not tolerate the forest and are never seen there. They are 

 birds of open country but seem nearly indifferent to its type. In 

 the inhabited districts of the humid coastal regions they are one of 

 the most conspicuous species. Their favorite haunts are bushy 

 pastures, orchards, the lighter second growth, and even lawns and 

 clearings about the native huts. Marshland is as acceptable to them 

 as a well-drained hillside, and they are numerous in such extensive 

 stands of sawgrass as that surrounding the Toloa Lagoon in Hon- 

 duras, although it is probable that they do not venture far from 

 some outstanding hummock or ridge which supports a few low bushes 

 in which they can roost and nest. In the semidesert regions of the 

 interior, where their associates of the coast lands, if present at all, 

 are as a rule rare and restricted to the moist thickets along the 

 rivers, they are among the most numerous of birds, and live among 

 scattered cacti and acacias as successfully as amid the rankest vege- 

 tation of the districts watered by 12 feet of rainfall in the year. 

 In altitude they range upward to 5,000 feet, but are not nearly so 

 numerous in the elevated districts as in the lowlands." 



