NATURAL HTSTORY OF COSTA RICA RIDGWAY. 321 



brown or chestnut color and the two oval spots on the thorax instead 

 of being superficial and black are confluent with the interior anatomy 

 and emit a light so brilliant that one or two imprisoned within an 

 inverted tumbler produce sufficient light to fairly illumine a room of 

 moderate size and by which a book or newspaper can be read if 

 sufficiently near. At Bonilla and other localities in the middle por- 

 tions of the tierra caliente the pastures and other open places were 

 brilliantly lighted each night by great numbers of these beetles as 

 they flew about, a few feet above the ground. The display some- 

 times made by thousands of our " lightning bugs " or fire-flies over 

 damp meadows of a warm summer night is only a feeble imitation, 

 for the light of the carbuncle is not intermittent but nearly con- 

 tinuous, and differs in color in different individuals (possibly there 

 may be more than one species), yellow in most, but sometimes green 

 or occasionally ruby red. 



It has already been remarked that, contrary to the popular impres- 

 sion, there are among tropical birds many songsters. Never have 

 I heard a greater volume of bird song than on the return trip from 

 Coliblanco to Cartago, when dozens of the common robin of Cen- 

 tral America (Planesticus grayi) were singing in unison as we 

 emerged from the forest and entered an open and partly cultivated 

 district. This species has a song exceedingly like that of our robin 

 but decidedly finer, being smoother and without the jerky or falter- 

 ing delivery of our bird. In many instances it was noted that when 

 a North American bird was represented in Costa Rica by a closely 

 allied or congeneric species the song of the latter was very much finer 

 than that of the former. The Costa Rican representatives of our 

 robin, house Avren, and summer yellow-bird or yellow warbler are 

 conspicuous examples. A bird that was common throughout the 

 Pacific slope, especially near the coast, belonging to the vireo family 

 but of a genus (Cydarhis) not represented in the United States, 

 has a song like a glorified or greatly magnified bluebird's warble. 

 But it is among the wrens, wdiich are far more numerously repre- 

 sented in tropical America than in the United States, that the most 

 remarkable songsters are found. In the dense chaparral forming 

 the first zone of vegetation beneath the cinder-cone of the volcano 

 of Poas, where profound silence prevails, the oppressive stillness was 

 suddenly broken by a startling outburst of most exquisite music from 

 some bird concealed in the thicket. The song was not only exceed- 

 ingly beautiful but very loud and long continued, and in quality of 

 tone reminded me of a Swiss music box. The singer proved to be a 

 little short-tailed wren of the genus Henicorhina. Several of the 

 wrens found only in the forests of the tierra caliente have songs 

 that are no less remarkable, but to describe them would be im- 



