90 BULLETIN 17 9, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



I7th a few more were observed along telephone wires and over the 

 pastures, but the species remained rare until the 20th, when it sud- 

 denly became more common. A good-sized flight of several scores 

 was noted flying southeastward by singles and couples at sunset on 

 the 23rd, and after that date scissor-tailed flycatchers were conspicu- 

 ous objects in all types of more open country." 



In Guatemala, "at Ocos the migration was in full swing October 

 fifteenth," according to some notes sent by A. W. Anthony to Ludlow 

 Griscom (1932). ''On that date a stiff gale was blowing from the 

 southeast, against which the migrants were forced to fly. At tunes 

 the flj^catchers were just able to hold their own and, again, seemed 

 to be forced backward. Often such birds, in order to find more fav- 

 orable air currents, dropped to within a few feet of the ground, 

 others veered inland and tried the shelter of the forest. The flight 

 was still in full force at dusk. The Scissor-tails were still abundant 

 the last of the month." 



Wmter. — The scissor-tailed flycatcher spends the winter from south- 

 ern Mexico to Panama. In El Salvador, Mr. van Rossem (Dickey 

 and van Eossem, 1938) calls it a "common, locally abundant, fall and 

 spring migrant and less common winter visitant in the Arid Lower 

 Tropical Zone." In Guatemala, Mr. Griscom (1932) refers to it as 

 "a conmion transient and winter visitant to all open country below 

 5,000 feet." Alexander F. Skutch has sent me some notes on this 

 species, in which he says: "In Central America the scissor-tailed 

 flycatcher is most abundant as a winter resident on the dry Pacific 

 side of the isthmus from the Gulf of Nicoya northward. It spreads 

 sparingly over the cleared lands of the central plateau of Costa Rica ; 

 and in November 1935 I saw a few as high as 7,500 feet above sea- 

 level in the pasturelands on the south side of the Volcano Irazu. I 

 have never found the bird in the Caribbean lowlands or in heavily 

 forested country. 



"At Las Canas, Province of Guanacaste, Costa Rica, scores of these 

 lovely, graceful birds slept nightly in some tall orange trees behind 

 the jefatura, or town-hall, in the heart of the village, in company 

 with a far smaller number of Lichtenstein's kingbirds {Tyrannus 

 rrhelcmcholicus) . At or a little before sunset, they were to be seen 

 flying into the village from all directions, high in the air. Soon they 

 began to settle in the tops of the orange trees; but alarmed by the 

 sudden passage of some person beneath them, or seized by a sudden 

 unrest, they would dart swiftly forth again, and circle about in the 

 air before returning to their sleeping-place. At Nicoya, a far smaller 

 number slept in some fig trees with dense foliage which stood in a 

 row along one side of the plaza of the little village. Here also they 

 roosted with Lichtenstein's kingbirds, which here seemed to outnum- 



