l88 BROOKLYN INSTITUTE MUSEUM. SCIENCE BULLETIN 2. 6. 



whitish or flesh color, in immature birds, dusky blackish; feet slaty. 

 Females have the eye dark sepia brown ; bill blackish ; feet dusky slate 

 color. 



Young males resemble the female, and mate and breed before ac- 

 quiring the plumage of the adult. 



A nest with three fresh eggs was taken at Caicara on the 8th of 

 June, 1907. The nest is a frail, thin-walled cup 6.5 cm. in diameter 

 by 4 cm. in depth outside and 5 cm. in diameter by 3.5 cm. in depth 

 inside. It is composed almost entirely of fine rootlets, wood-brown 

 in color, with a scant inner lining of black horse-hair-like vegetable 

 fibres. The side walls and bottom of the nest are so thin and were so 

 loosely put together that the eggs were readily visible from below. 

 The nest was about 3.5 m. from the ground, near the extreme tip of 

 one of the topmost branches of a small tree, the trunk and branches 

 of which were thickly studded with long sharp thorns. It was loosely 

 set on a small horizontal fork. No effort seemed to have been made 

 toward "tieing" it to its support. 



The eggs approach elliptical ovate in form. The ground color 

 is a dull greyish white. There is considerable variation in the 

 amount and the color of the markings. One of the set is thickly and 

 nearly uniformly covered over the entire surface with small specks 

 and dots of vinaceous cinnamon. In addition thefe are some overly- 

 ing spots and blotches of hazel brown, chiefly about the larger end. 

 The other two eggs of the set are much less speckled although there 

 is an abundance of minute dots of pale vinaceous cinnamon, the larger 

 spots and blotches being about as evenly distributed as those in the 

 egg first described, but nearer a pale drab brown than a hazel ; in addi- 

 tion there are a few superimposed irregular shaped markings of dark 

 seal brown (almost black) about the larger end. 



On the i8th of June a nest with three eggs was collected, also 

 at Caicara. This nest was about 2./ m. up, between the thorns and 

 thrust against the stem of a small thorny palm. It is less symmetri- 

 cal in its outline, the walls are somewhat thicker and composed of 

 coarser materials, so loosely woven that the eggs could be seen through 

 the nest bottom. There is no lining of black, hair-like vegetable 

 fibres, as in the other nests. Three eggs were found in this nest, 

 but owing to their advanced state of incubation only two were saved. 

 They are in every way similar in color and markings to the eggs of 



