502 BIRDS OF THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA PART 2 



the prong-billed barbets were mainly vegetarian, eating berries and 

 larger fruits, and also flower petals. Both of these foods when large 

 were held against a branch under one foot while fragments were 

 torn off with the strong bill to be swallowed. In addition to the 

 rattling chatter that I had heard he identified "a deep, far-carrying, 

 somewhat throaty call, not unmelodious in the distance, sounding 

 somewhat like the syllables cwa cwa cwa rapidly repeated many times 

 over." This was often the utterance of several birds together, some- 

 times of male and female, the voice of the latter being weaker. He 



Figure 63. — Prong-billed barbet, male, cacareon, Semnornis frantzii. 



was especially interested to find that outside the nesting season 

 several joined at night to sleep in holes in trees that served as com- 

 munal dormitories. Seven came regularly to one rather small cavity. 

 Later he found 16 using another, where they must have slept in 

 crowded company. 



Toward the end of March the birds were in pairs, and then began 

 to excavate their nest holes. For this they chose dead trees or dead 

 branches where the wood had softened, but still was firm. The pair 

 alternated in this work in the beginning, clinging woodpecker- fashion 

 rather awkwardly to the site, located 3 to 18 meters or so above 

 the ground, while with strong bills they bit out fragments of wood. 

 The entrance passage was 5 to 8 centimeters long before the excava- 

 tion, still narrow, turned downward and expanded. One nest that 



