254 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I50 



legs are most noticeable when they are seen on the ground, as then 

 they stand very erect, almost as though on stilts. In the hand, the 

 broad scutes on the front and back of the tarsus are smooth, and 

 in part may appear fused in one long plate. The outer toe, definitely 

 shorter than the inner one, is also slightly shorter than the hind toe. 



The flight is direct and rather slow, performed by a succession of 

 rapid wing-beats, followed by a short sail with the wings held fully 

 extended. At La Jagua, toward evening, one came occasionally 

 to rest on an open branch, where, in the steady trade wind, it bent 

 forward until the body was nearly horizontal. The food appears to 

 be mainly frogs, lizards, and small snakes for which it may search 

 on the ground at the open borders of streams. They also clamber 

 about rather awkwardly in open trees, bending far over to examine 

 the under side of the limbs. I have observed small flycatchers pur- 

 suing them, but the hawks have paid no attention to these attacks. 



The nesting of these birds in Panama has not been reported but 

 should not differ from that of related subspecies. Two eggs of 

 /. c. livens (Bangs and Penard), a form of northwestern Mexico, 

 in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, taken at Alamos, Sonora, 

 on February 9, 1888, by M. A. Frazer are chalky white, without 

 gloss, with a very faint bluish tinge. They are oval in form and 

 measure 50.0x39.6, and 51.0x39.2 mm. The collector described 

 the nest as about 10 meters from the ground, placed insecurely on 

 a tangle of small thorny branches growing from two larger limbs. 

 It was built of small sticks, lined with others still smaller, and was 

 so flimsy that the eggs were visible through the bottom. The tree 

 stood in a small grove in the bottom of an arroyo. Two other sets 

 of two, and one with a single tgg, in the W. J. Sheffier collection, 

 taken near the Hacienda Guiracoba, in southeastern Sonora, were 

 in nests built of small sticks, vine stalks and weed stems, lined with 

 finer materials including twigs with green leaves, located high in 

 trees growing along nearly dry washes. The eggs, described as 

 plain white, have the following range in measurement: 50-53 X 

 38-43 mm. (Sutton, Wilson Bull, 1954, pp. 241-242). 



Hewitt (Ool. Rec, vol. 17, 1937, p. 12) records a single egg of 

 the typical race /. c. caerulescens from southern Venezuela also 

 as white, without gloss, with measurements of 47.5x38.5 mm. The 

 nest, of small sticks lined with "dry leaves and a few feathers from 

 the breast of the bird," was an open cup about 25 centimeters across 

 located near the end of a branch 25 meters from the ground. 



