20 BULLETIN 17 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



of dry loaves ; the bottom layer consisted of four eggs and these, strange to say, 

 were all infertile. I believe this singular habit is practised in all cases where 

 a large number of birds resort to the same nest. 



Dr. Alexander Wetmore (1927) writes: 



Although this species often builds a communal nest, this is not always the 

 case. Near Cayey [Porto Rico], January 22, two anis were seen constructing 

 a nest in a tree about thirty feet above a small stream, the male sitting on a 

 limb above while the female was in the nest, as yet only a loose mass of sticks 

 and weads. She moved and turned to shape it to her body, with her long tail 

 sticking nearly straight up in the air. Near Bayamon, July 25, a single bird 

 slipped quietly from a bulky nest in a clump of bamboos and only its mate 

 appeared to join it. The nests were all large and bulky and were located from 

 six to thirty feet above the ground. Bowdish reports a communal nest found 

 near Aguadilla, August 13, built eight feet from the ground, in a thicket of 

 bushes and trees. This nest contained twenty eggs, placed in layers of four 

 or five, each layer being covered with dead leaves to separate it from the next 

 lot of eggs above. Eight of the eggs were partly incubated and twelve were 

 fresh. 



John G. Wells (1902) says: "A flat nest is first built and about 

 6 or 7 eo-^s laid in it; then these are covered over and more eggs 

 laid, and so on until four or five layers of nests have been constructed 

 one over the other. 



"I have seen four of these birds sitting on the nest together. When 

 the top layer of eggs is hatched, and the young fledged, it is scraped 

 off and incubation goes on with each succeeding layer, until all the 

 eggs are hatched." 



Eggs. — On account of its communal nesting habits, the number 

 of eggs laid by each individual ani does not seem to be known; 

 nor is anything known about the period of incubation. The num- 

 ber of eggs found in a nest varies greatly, from 4 or 5 up to 20 or 

 more, depending on the number of females laying in the nest. I 

 have in my collection a set of 18, there is a set of 19 in the Thayer 

 collection, and sets of 20 and 21 are mentioned above. 



The eggs vary in shape from oval to elliptical-oval. Bendire 

 (1895) says that the eggs "are glaucous-blue in color, and this is 

 overlaid and hidden by a thin, chalky, white deposit; as incuba- 

 tion advances the eggs become more or less scratched and the blue 

 underneath is then plainly visible in places, giving them a very 

 peculiar appearance." The underlying color of some of the eggs that 

 I have seen is "pale Nile blue"; others have described them as green. 



The eggs are often very much nest stained. Mr. Taylor (Scott, 

 1892) makes the following interesting observation regarding the 

 scratches: "What seems very singular is that comparatively little 

 of this chalky covering gets rubbed off the sides, where from the 

 turning over of the eggs in the nest we should expect to see the 

 greatest extent of denudation, whereas one or loth ends are nearly 



