FAMILY GALBULIDAE 463 



Because of the iridescent plumage and the long, very slender bill 

 many persons think of this jacamar as a large kind of hummingbird, 

 as is indicated by the common name in Guatemala of gorrion de mon- 

 taiia, and of tucuso de montana in Venezuela (gorrion and tucuso 

 being names applied to hummingbirds in these countries). Skutch 

 (Auk, 1937, pp. 135-146; Ibis, 1963, pp. 354-368) has written two de- 

 tailed accounts of the life history of this subspecies. He describes the 

 call as a single rather sharp note, often varied in tone, that may be re- 

 peated rapidly as a musical, trilling song. The nest is a burrow exca- 

 vated in some more or less vertical earthen surface, as a steep-faced 

 bank that may be less than half a meter high, or placed sometimes in 

 the elevated masses of earth that adhere to the vertical roots of fallen 

 trees. He writes that seven burrows measured in Costa Rica varied 

 from about 29 to 41 centimeters (11| to 16 inches) in length by about 

 40 millimeters (If inches) in diameter. They were dug in the dry sea- 

 son in February, though eggs were not laid until later, from March to 

 June. During incubation, a period that varied from 19 to about 23 

 days, male and female alternated in the nest through the day, with the 

 female in attendance during the entire night. Young when hatched 

 were well covered with rather long filaments of white down. 



Jacamars are expert flycatchers, being one of the relatively few 

 birds that capture and eat butterflies regularly. These, if large, are 

 beaten on a perch to break off the wings. Smaller kinds are fed entire 

 to the young. Large dragonflies, beetles, diptera, and bees are in- 

 cluded in the food. Masses of hard chitin are regurgitated by parents 

 in the nest chamber, where the eggs are laid on the bare earth, and 

 accumulate through the period of development of the young. Though 

 there is no nest sanitation, plumage of the young remains clean. 



Skutch recorded sets of 2 and 3 eggs in Costa Rica, and 2 sets of 4 

 each in Guatemala. In one nest in the latter locality he found "four 

 small, pure-white eggs which were nearly round and appeared quite 

 fresh, for the shells were somewhat translucent and the yolks shone 

 through. . . . They measured: 22.2x19.1, 22.2x19.1, 22.2x19.4 

 and 23 X 19.8 millimeters." 



The bill in these jacamars while long, with a very slender, attenuated 

 tip is hard and strong. Wear is seldom evident from their work in dig- 

 ging nest burrows, which, however, are excavated in clay or other soil 

 that usually is not too hard. The report by Medina Padilla (Bol. Mus. 

 Cienc. Nat., Caracas, vol. 1, 1955, p. 198) of a nest in a burrow in a 

 termitarium may perhaps have been an instance when the jacamar 



