188 BULLETIN 133, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



in fact, for some time when I heard this sound I mistook it for 

 some child in noise-making play and wondered mildly that the 

 method of producing the sound, common in the United States, 

 should be loioAvn to the youth of the south. The food of this species 

 is mainly insects, and the species is a valuable aid to agriculture in 

 its destruction of injurious grasshoppers. On one occasion I saw 

 one with a cicada in its bill. The birds are considered excellent 

 for domestication since they are said to rid houses of all of the 

 creeping and running insects that pester man, while it was rumored, 

 probably without basis in fact, that they might learn to imitate a 

 few words of human speech. They have a parrotlike habit of 

 searching with the bill through the plumage of companions, perhaps 

 for parasites. Their feathers are long and not very abundant, while 

 the skin is thick and strong. The body exhales a strong, pungent 

 odor, similar to that of the ani, and cuckoos of the genus Coccyzus^ 

 to me a disagreeable smell that if endured for any length of time 

 produces headache. 



Guira guira Avas definitely recorded as follows: Santa Fe, Santa 

 Fe, July 4, 1920; Resistencia, Chaco, July 9; Las Palmas, Chaco, 

 July 13 to August 1 (a male taken July 15) ; Riacho Pilaga, For- 

 mosa, August 8, 15, and 20; Formosa, Formosa, August 23 and 24; 

 Puerto Pinasco, Paraguaj?- (from the river west to Kilometer 80, 

 September 1 to 30 (a female taken at Kilometer 80, September 16) ; 

 Dolores, Buenos Aires, October 21; Lavalle, Buenos Aires, October 

 27 to November 13; Carhue, Buenos Aires, December 17 (an adult 

 female shot); Victorica, Pampa, December 23 and 27; Carrasco, 

 Uruguay, January 9 and 16, 1921; La Paloma, Uruguay, January 

 23; San Vicente, Uruguay, January 25 to February 2 (a male shot 

 January 27) ; Lazcano, Uruguay, February 3 to 9 (one taken Feb- 

 ruary 6) ; Guamini, Buenos Aires, March 3 and 4; Tunuyan, Men- 

 doza, March 24 and 29; Tapia, Tucuman, April 6 to 13. 



In the museum of the University of Kansas are two specimens 

 taken near Bahia Blanca, Buenos Aires, by H. T. Martin and S. A. 

 Adams, one in November and one on December 10, 1903. This is 

 about the southern limit of the species from information at present 

 available. 



A male taken July 15 had the tip of the bill varying from apri- 

 cot orange on the culmen to salmon orange on the mandible; base 

 of bill and bare skin on side of head reed yellow; iris cadmium 

 orange; tarsus and toes dark olive gray, becoming olive gray at 

 margins of scutes. 



