90. MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB 



near Havana, and another female with eggs from near Cojimar. These, 

 with another female from the Marianao side of Havana, all, perforce, 

 came from more or less open country. A male which I shot February 4, 

 I9i3,was flushed in the dense, dark woods near the Cienaga. The Bangs 

 collection contains a beautiful female from Bayate in Orientc. 



Gundlach never found the nest or eggs, and Ramsden has not taken 

 the bird in eastern Oriente, although Guantanamo was one of the only 

 two stations where Gundlach had collected it. There is a breeding record 

 from ten miles south of Bayamo (C. T. Ramsden, Auk, vol. 29, p. 394, 

 1912). 



The Guabairo can be identified only when in the hand. It is like a 

 small Chuck-wills-widow, but much darker, often almost black. 



159. Todus multicolor multicolor Gould. 

 Cuban Tody; Pedorera. 



The little green, pink-throated Todies live in a variety of situations. 

 They are at home in the wide thickets of beach grape whose stiff, awkward 

 stems and great, round, hard leaves rattle in the trade-wind, and whose 

 fallen leaves give shelter to hosts of ants, scorpions and hermit crabs. 

 Along the arroyos, torrents in the rainy season or mere series of pools in 

 dry weather, are rimmings of vegetation, bamboo, cocoa-plum bushes 

 and larger trees, over-arching the stream and decorated with sprays of 

 fantastic orchids and air-plants. Here through the green density comes 

 the drowsy coo of Doves, and ever and anon the Tody flashes and jerks 

 and snaps through the air, its short, erratic flights accompanied by a 

 sharp clicking noise like some exaggerated grasshopper. Todies are 

 anathema to those who keep bees, but they make up for occasional sin by a 

 confiding jollity of mien which makes them beloved by every one. Their 

 note is a repetition of to-to-to, said faster and faster until it becomes a 

 rattling chatter. The nest is put at the end of a shallow tunnel, usually 

 in a cut bank and only a few inches deep, and in this the three or four white 

 eggs are laid. 



Todies shift from perch to perch and do not hold to one favorite 

 lookout like our Flycatchers. They sally forth and catch their prey in 

 flight, then beat it vigorously on a limb before guzz'ing it. They are so 

 tame that a long-handled net would often catch one if skilfully wielded. 



