322 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1921. 



possible; it can only be said that in the United States we have 

 nothing at all like them. Many a time, while making my way slowly 

 and cautiously through the dense undergrowth I have been trans- 

 fixed and thrilled by a sudden outburst of strange melody — as 

 startling in its effect as the unexpected report of a gun close by — 

 from some unseen and then unknown songster ; the notes of a quality 

 totally different from those produced by any of our northern song- 

 sters, far richer, more liquid, but at the same time strictly in 

 harmony with the savage wildness of the primeval forest. At 

 higher altitudes a small thrush (Catharus frantzii) was often heard 

 whose song is strikingly similar in character to that of our hermit 

 thrush, and every bit as ethereal. 



The bird notes which most attract the attention of the stranger 

 in tropical forests are not the songs, however, so much as the odd 

 or strange calls of many species. One of the most remarkable of 

 these is that of the Costa Eican bell bird, a bird about the size of 

 a pigeon, uniform cinnamon-rufous in color with snow-white head 

 and neck, and with three long, slender, flexible wattles at the base 

 of the bill. A loud explosive tvhack, as if some one had struck a 

 hollow log of hard and resonant wood a heavy blow with an axe or 

 heavy mallet, is followed by a long-drawn, exceedingly loud, clear, 

 and penetrating whistle — both easily heard at a distance of a mile 

 or more. Probably next in order of remarkable character, and far 

 more often heard, are the loud bubbling notes — half gobble, half 

 sputter — of the oropendola, a bird of the hang-nest family but 

 nearly as large as a crow, colored black and chestnut with tail 

 bright golden yellow. This bird is gregarious, and the singular 

 performances of the male are no less remarkable than his notes. 

 Throwing himeslf forward until almost suspended beneath his 

 perch, with feathers on end, the loud bubbling sound is produced, 

 interspersed with hoots and other discordant sounds, and a rustling 

 noise, possibly produced by friction or shaking of the primary 

 quills. The last was compared by a native boy to the sound made 

 by " a woman rustling her skirts." These birds nest in colonies, 

 their yard-long purse-like nests suspended from the tips of the 

 branches of some isolated tree, comparatively safe from monkeys 

 and snakes (pi. 5, fig. 1). Frequently one hears a peculiar rasping 

 sound, as if someone were drawing the end of a stick quickly, three 

 times in succession, across the ridges of an ordinary washboard, or the 

 woven rattan slats of a chair bottom. This is the call of two species 

 of toucan (Ramphastos brevicarinatus and Selenidera spectabilis) ; 

 and although these two species belong to very distinct genera and 

 are utterly unlike in appearance, I never could tell, from the sound 

 alone, which was producing it. Another toucan (Ramphastos 



