FAMILY BUCCONIDAE 467 



open. Slud (Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. 128, 1964, pp. 177- 

 178) reports variations from this to "two-parted and two-leveled" 

 notes. He records also that they fly out like motmots to seize insect 

 prey among leaves, rather than flycatching in open air like the 

 smaller species of the family. 



Their food so far as recorded is taken from a variety of insects. 

 One collected by E. A. Goldman at Cana had the stomach filled 

 with fragments of 4 or more kinds of beetles. Others that I have exam- 

 ined had eaten lepidoptera and shining green, wasplike hymenoptera. 



This species, like the large motmots, is often called J tiro. 



The race found in Panama and northern and western Colombia 

 was named to honor Thomas E. Penard, a collaborator of the 

 Museum of Comparative Zoology, in recognition of his studies of 

 neotropical birds. 



Family BUCCONIDAE: Puffbirds; Buconidas 



The birds of this family, of 30 or more tropical American species, 

 are found in forested areas from southern Mexico south through 

 Central America and South America to northern Argentina. While 

 they vary from those of sparrow size to others that are as large as 

 jays, all have rather heavy bodies, short legs, and short tails, with 

 rounded wings. The majority are birds that rest quietly on open 

 perches on watch for insects or larger food. Their feathers are long, 

 soft and lax, moulded loosely to the body, from which has come the 

 group name of puffbird. Like their relatives the jacamars they nest in 

 burrows that they dig in earthen banks, or in nests of termites 

 elevated in trees. Most have wheezy voices heard rather rarely. An 

 exception is found in the gray and black nunbirds, largest in the 

 family, that have a variety of loud calls, often uttered by several in 

 company. 



While related to the jacamars they differ decidedly in more somber 

 plumage, and in the strong bristle feathers around the mouth. It 

 was long believed also that puffbirds lacked the aftershaft on the 

 contour feathers of the body, present in the other family. But in a 

 recent study Sibley (Wilson Bull., 1956, p. 252) has found that a 

 group of about 12 slender barbs that arise separately from the prox- 

 imal margin of the superior umbilicus are homologous to the fully 

 formed aftershaft of the jacamars. 



