FAMILY EURYPYGIDAE 3/1 



walk aside and hide so that it is often found with some difficulty. 

 Occasionally one may fly into low branches and there remain con- 

 cealed. As it moves the slender form and long legs and neck often 

 give the impression of a huge sandpiper, a resemblance heightened 

 by its rather somber colors. But this impression vanishes instantly 

 when one begins its display, with the wings and tail fully spread to 

 show their beautiful pattern of black, white and chestnut mingled with 

 light buff, while the bird turns and whirls, in shade or in sun. Then 

 its size seems more than doubled as both wings and tail are broad. 



In the field the only note that I have recorded from them is a low 

 trill, but repeatedly in the bird house of the National Zoological 

 Park I have heard a ringing call, ko way, that has resounded through 

 the building. 



They are often found walking over the rocky beds of small streams, 

 and it is here that they secure much of their food. The stomach of 

 one that I examined, taken in Darien where the Rio Ucurganti joins 

 the Chucunaque, held 15 to 20 tiny snails, the elytron of a beetle, 

 and leg bones of a small batrachian. In two taken by Goldman near 

 Gatun on May 16, 1911, one had eaten fragments of a river crab 

 (Pseudothelphnsa sp.). The other held remains of 2 large spiders, a 

 bug (Heteropteran), moths, 2 large scarabaeids, and another beetle 

 (Temnochila sp.). Deignan (Auk, 1936, p. 188) found a shrimp and 

 remains of smaller crustaceans in one taken in Honduras. The bill 

 tip in most museum specimens shows wear from feeding among the 

 stones and hard ground of the usual habitat. 



Skutch (Wilson Bull., 1947, p. 38), in Costa Rica, found a bulky 

 nest in a small tree near the bank of a boulder-filled stream, that was 

 built of leaves, stems, and other decaying vegetation, with green moss, 

 and some earth. Two eggs lay in the open cup, which w&s lined with 

 green leaves. I have seen no description of the eggs of the form of 

 Central America and northwestern South America. Three single 

 eggs of the allied, but quite distinct Eurypyga helms helms in the 

 U. S. National Museum collected by R. N. Berryman, Jr., May 10, 

 1934, June 26, and July 9, 1935, at Guanoco, Sucre, in northeastern 

 Venezuela, have the shell smooth, with a faint gloss, and in ground 

 color vary from tilleul-buff to somewhat darker than pinkish buff. All 

 are spotted sparingly with black, violet-gray, chocolate, and chestnut, 

 mainly around the larger end. They measure 42.8x33.3, 44.0x35.0, 

 and 44.6 X 33.7 mm. 



The species is one of limited habitat and apparently of restricted 

 territorial range so far as individual birds are concerned, that while 

 shy is not especially wary, so that it is vulnerable as settlement en- 



