FAMILY FURNARIIDAE IO3 



gentle grade for eighteen inches . . . turned sharply to the right and 

 slightly downward . . . into a chamber about eight inches in all 

 of its diameters. Here was a nest containing two warm eggs. . . . 

 One expects to find a flimsy nest at the end of a burrow, but in this 

 case I was able to pull the structure through a passageway of smaller 

 diameter than itself, to have it spring back firmly into shape. . . . 

 It was made entirely of medium-sized rootlets of wiry texture, woven 

 very compactly together. It was about . . . one and one-half inches 

 thick and almost flat. The eggs were dull white with little gloss. . . . 

 They each measured 33.5x23 mm. . . . Incubation was almost com- 

 plete." The bird that was incubating, collected about noon, was a 

 male. 



Another nest found by Dr. Frank A. Hartman (Condor, 1957, 

 pp. 269-271) at an elevation of 1375 meters near El Volcan, western 

 Chiriqui, was in a hole in a cut bank along a logging road on the 

 slope of a forested hill. The tunnel, 10 centimeters wide by 9 high, 

 was about 65 centimeters long. A chamber 15 centimeters in diameter 

 at the end held a thick nest of rootlets. The two eggs, heavily incu- 

 bated, were white with measurements each of 31.3x20.3 mm. The 

 male, taken as a specimen, was incubating when the nest was found. 

 Eisenmann and N. G. Smith recorded a nest in a cut bank along a 

 road above Quiel. in this region, on July 12-18, 1964. Both parents 

 were carrying food to the young. 



Three eggs in a set in the British Museum (Natural History), 

 labeled Irazu, Costa Rica, March 25, 1898 (collector not listed) are 

 subelliptical in form, white without gloss, and measure as follows : 

 29.3 X 22. 1 , 29.5 x 22.2 and 30.0 x 21 .8 mm. 



A pair taken on Cerro Pando beyond El Volcan, Chiriqui, Febru- 

 ary 13, 1960, were in breeding condition with a nearly complete 

 egg in the female. 



Skutch (Pac. Coast Avif. No. 35, 1969, pp. 314-316) recorded 

 a nest found May 24, 1938, in the Cordillera Central of Costa Rica, 

 at about 1700 meters elevation, placed in a tunnel near the top of a 

 cut bank along a mountain roadway. The nest proper, a cup of fibrous 

 rootlets, held two well-grown nestlings. As the burrow was examined 

 the two parents arrived, each carrying a small green frog in the bill. 

 In due course, first one and then the other adult flew to the nest 

 entrance with the food to be greeted with loud notes somewhat like 

 the calls of young woodpeckers. On the following morning in the 

 course of 4 hours the parents, in 11 visits, brought four small lizards. 



