FAMILY FORMICARIIDAE 2ig 



56, no. 2, June 1944, frontispiece) taken by flashlight on Barro 

 Colorado Island, Canal Zone. May 19, 1929. This shows one of these 

 birds with the body halfway out of a hole in the trunk of a slender 

 shrub. With the picture is the observation that the "nest was three 

 feet above the ground and contained one egg." The egg was not de- 

 scribed. For Fonnicarius analis analis Pinto (Papeis Avulsos, Dept. 

 Zool. Seer. Agric. Sao Paulo, vol. 11, no. 13, June 1953, p. 169) 

 records two eggs, collected at Utinga, a suburb of Belem, March 12, 

 1929, as white, with measurements of 32x23 and 29.5x23 mm. 

 A further account of F. a. saturatus, not fully definite, by G. F. Mees 

 (in Junge and Mees, Avifauna of Trinidad and Tobago, Zool. Verb. 

 Rijksm. Nat. Hist. Leiden, no. 37, 1958, p. 91) describes a nest 

 "almost certainly of this species, but only a glimpse of the bird, 

 when fleeing from it, was found on 8 October [1953] near the 

 summit of Mt. Tabor. It was in a hollow tree of about 20 cm. 

 diameter. The two eggs are white, roundish, and measure 31.5 X 

 23.8 ±32x24.6. They were heavily incubated, but could be preserved, 

 they are rather dirty." Finally Skutch (Ibis, 1966, p. 10) in studies 

 in western Costa Rica remarks that F. analis "nests in low, hollow 

 trunks, often in cavities open to rain at the top." 



Cherrie in his Ornithology of the Orinoco Region in description 

 of the related species Fonmcarius colma colma (Mus. Brooklyn 

 Inst. Arts, Sci., Science Bull., vol. 2, no. 6, 1916, p. 292) wrote that a 

 nest "from which the parent was flushed, was found at Nericagua in 

 March 1899. It was a natural cavity in a tree trunk, about 5 metres 

 from the ground. The cavity was about 40 cm. in depth and about 

 15 cm. in diameter. The bottom was lined with rootlets and dry 

 grasses. The two eggs were pure white." It is of interest to refer 

 also to the accounts by Meise (in Schonwetter, Handb. Ool., pt.l4, 

 1967, pp. 42, 43) of eggs in this genus, in which he cites white eggs 

 without marking in Fonnicarius analis in the subspecies moniUger, 

 hoffmanni, saturatus (but with reference to Belcher and Smooker, 

 quoted above), crissalis and analis, and also in Formicarius colma 

 ruficeps. 



From this summary there seems to be no question that the species of 

 Formicarius, unlike others of the family, nest in holes and lay white 

 eggs. 



As I have handled these birds in the field in the preparation of 

 museum specimens I have noted that the pterylosis does not agree 

 with that of such Formicariids as Cymhilaimus lineatus, Taraha 

 major, Myrmeciza longipes, and M. exsul, where the dorsal area 



