MERRILL'S PAURAQUE 201 



turbed, but he found no evidence that this species does so, saying : 

 "I have given pauraques all kinds of incentives to move their eggs 

 to a safer place, but they have never shifted their positions even a 

 few inches as a result of my interference. The case v^as quite dif- 

 ferent when I moved the eggs from the spot which the birds had 

 selected as their nest." In tMs case, he had moved the eggs twice, 

 once only a few inches and once a foot away from an area infested by 

 fire ants ; but each time the parents moved them back again to their 

 chosen spot ; the result was that, as soon as the eggs began to hatch, 

 the chicks were destroyed by the ants. He did not see how the eggs 

 were moved; probably they were pushed along with the feet and 

 body, as the nighthawk has been seen to do. 



Both parents took turns in brooding the young throughout the 

 day, relieving each other at intervals of two or three hours, as they 

 did on the eggs. As the young were fed in the dusk or deeper dark- 

 ness of evening, it was only after several trials that he was able to 

 see the performance clearly. He writes: "It was dark now, but at 

 the critical moment I pushed the button of a powerful flashlight. The 

 mother was resting on the ground in her customary position, looking 

 toward me with eyes that shone like rubies in the beam of light. The 

 little ones stood on tiptoe in front of her, their necks stretched up, 

 bringing their heads on a level with her mouth. One was being fed 

 while the other waited impatiently for its turn. Though her mouth 

 was so big she could easily have swallowed her nestling whole, her 

 little hill was inserted into its widely open mouth, just as with a 

 hummingbird, and with distended throat and convulsive movements 

 of the body she regurgitated into it the insects she had captured. 

 When she had given sufficient to the first one, she paused with head 

 erect, clearly much alarmed by the light, but the second continued its 

 silent importunities and the parent yielded despite her fears, feeding 

 it in the same manner. Then she went off to hunt more insects. 



"Presently one of the parents entered the thicket again, but instead 

 of going to the youngsters it settled on the ground beliind the blind, 

 fully 20 feet from them, and began the low croaking-clucking call, 

 which draws them as the magnet draws the floating needle. The two- 

 and three-day-old bantlings drew themselves up and began hopping 

 bravely toward the voice, peeping as they went through the darkness. 

 Directly in their path was a young banana plant, which I had felled 

 in clearing a place for the blind. The large, slippery leaves lay in a 

 tangled mass that loomed above them; the Alps formed no more 

 insurmountable obstacle to the advance of Hannibal's army than this 

 confusing barrier to the young pauraques. Dauntless as the re- 

 nowned Carthaginian, they pushed resolutely onward, lured by the 



