XANTXJS'S BECARD 6 



facing me, when one glance removed all doubt as to its identity ; for its breast 

 was stained a rich pink, which burned out brightly amid the dark shadows. 

 It was the Xantus Becard, the second member of the family Cotingidae we had 

 met. From time to time it uttered a low, indefinable lisp, and soon flow away. 

 Three other individuals were seen after that, all solitary, all fl.ycatching, all 

 in such deep woods as our Wood Pewee would love. 



Dickey and van Rossem (1938) say of the haunts of the gray 

 becard {P. a. latirostrls) in El Salvador: "Becards are ordinarily 

 rather quiet, sedentary birds, usually to be found in pairs in thin, 

 second growth and about the edges of clearings and open places 

 such as trails and roads. Their habit of sitting motionless for 

 minutes at a time is one which may cause them to be easily over- 

 looked. Though the normal habitat is gallery forest, they are by 

 no means averse to brushy, cut-over land and were quite common in 

 the taller mimosa growth about Davisadero. A few were found in 

 the heavy, swamp forest at Puerto del Triunfo, where they were 

 observed in the thin foliage between the ground and the thick forest 

 crown." 



Courtship. — Very little seems to be known about the habits of our 

 race of the rose-throated becard, and so little has been published 

 about this and other habits of the species that it seems desirable to 

 include here some of the observations of Alexander F. Skutch on 

 one of the Central American races, Sumichrast's becard {Platypsaris 

 aglaiae su/michj'asti Nelson), which probably does not differ mate- 

 rially in its habits from our subspecies. Much that follows is quoted 

 from his unpublished manuscript on the birds of the Caribbean 

 lowlands, which he very kindly lent me for this purpose. 



While he was watching, in Guatemala, a pair of these birds build- 

 ing the nest referred to below, he noticed a display by the male that 

 was probably a part of the courtship performance, of which he says : 

 "Sometimes, as he approached the female, he spread and displayed 

 his white epaulets, which appeared very fluffy and conspicuous, 

 standing above his shoulders and contrasting with his dark gray 

 back. These downy white feathers on the shoulders seemed intended 

 for her alone; except when in her presence he wore them laid flat, 

 and so completely covered over with the dark gray plumage of his 

 back that one would never have suspected their presence." 



Nesting. — Mr. Skutch's observations on the nesting of Sumichrast's 

 becard follow: "About a mile from the house the road passed through 

 a clearing in the woods, where the subterranean waters welled up 

 diffusely through the surface and gave rise to an open, sedgy marsh, 

 through the center of which flowed a little rill. Beside the rivulet, 

 in the middle of the marsh, four alder trees grew in a clump. Hang- 

 ing from the extremity of one of the finer twigs of an alder, 50 feet 

 above ground and quite unapproachable, was a large, globular bird's 



