l6 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I3I 



anxious to continue with the nest, but that she had lost interest, as 

 during the whole morning she never came near it. He would put half 

 of his body inside and make low grunts as he poked about with his 

 bill. The same performance continued on a following weekend. She 

 entered the nest several times, started tapping, then flew out again 

 after a short time. The male persisted for two more weeks in his 

 efforts to have her return. December 4 was the last time I ever saw 

 her in the nest. This was 6 weeks after I had first found her at work. 

 My final view of the pair was on December 12. They were perching 

 near the nest cavity but showed no interest in it. 



Structure of wall and the inside of the nest. — Nest entrances were 

 usually elongate slits, i^ to 2 inches wide and 4 to 10 inches high, 

 depending on the size of the natural cavity. These measurements 

 are approximate. Plate 4, figure 2, a photograph of nest 10, shows a 

 representative nest entrance. Walls were remarkably strong. Neither 

 Africans nor myself, by putting a hand into the slit and pulling hard, 

 could budge or loosen them in three nests opened for removal of 

 young. Much hacking and prying with a curved bush knife were 

 needed to effect an entrance. Another indication of the stoutness of 

 walls was provided at the time of natural nest openings. One-half of 

 the entrance cement of 2 nests (3 and 12) was knocked out entire, 

 apparently by the emerging female. These pieces fell 60 to 85 feet 

 to the ground, where I picked them up unbroken. They were roughly 

 4 inches long, 3 inches in width and thickness, and were built in con- 

 centric layers. Possibly each layer represented a day's work. Odd 

 bits of insects, bark, and plant material were incorporated in the 

 cement in haphazard fashion. In two of the three pieces, one side 

 was dark brown. It did not run with the concentric layers and it had 

 faced the inside of the nest. Females had probably made this addition 

 after being walled in. For lack of earth they had used fruit stones, 

 seeds, and what appeared to be darker fecal material. It did not 

 appear that feces was an integral part of the main cement structure 

 in any of the five nest walls I examined closely. 



There was nothing organized about the inside of a nest. Nests 10 

 and 14, examined at time of opening for removal of young, had frag- 

 ments of rotten wood at the bottom. Nest 10 also contained many 

 large contour feathers. When I pulled away the cement from this 

 nest, hundreds of small ants swarmed out from behind the edges. 

 My hand and arm were covered with them as I explored the cavity 

 which was roughly a foot in diameter. An African who broke open 

 nest 14 for me had a similar experience. These ants are presumably 

 attracted by feces and other debris, for an amazing amount of fruit 



