422 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1917. 



took this bird as an illustration of the conditions of life on Para- 

 dise Key, using the following parody on the well-known House- 

 that- Jack-built. " This is the hawk that caught the snake, that swal- 

 lowed the rat, that ate the fruit, that fell from the palm, that grew 

 from the seed that the bird dropped." 



Among the swamp dwellers are the limpkin (Arainus vociferus), 

 an odd bird intermediate between the cranes and rails, with olive- 

 brown plumage streaked with white; and the Carolina rail, or sora 

 (Porzana Carolina), a modest-colored, shy bird, which remains con- 

 cealed in the vegetation of the marshes during the day and does not 

 reveal its presence until the late afternoon, when it begins to utter its 

 whistling note, and continues it long after night has fallen. A 

 chorus of these birds has been compared to that of piping Hylas in 

 the early spring. 1 To this group also belong the purple gallinule and 

 the Florida gallinule, the former with resplendent plumage, a blue 

 shield on its forehead and a carmine bill tipped with yellow, the latter 

 with brownish plumage, a red frontal shield and a broad red band 

 above its knee. Another allied bird is the coot, or mud hen (Fulica 

 americana), distinguished by its whitish frontal shield and especially 

 by its lobed or scalloped toes, which are not unlike those of a grebe. 

 Kildeers (Oxyechus vociferus) are very common, filling the air with 

 their shrill cries, as though in a perpetual state of alarm. 



In addition to the well-known mourning dove, there is a beautiful, 

 little ground dove (Chaeimpelia passerina) on Paradise Key. A 

 closely allied variety of the latter collected in Porto Rico by Mr. 

 Alexander Wetmore, of the United States Biological Survey, was 

 found to have swallowed a number of ground pearls, or margarodes, 

 already described, which Mr. Wetmore thinks may have been picked 

 up by mistake for gravel to aid digestion. 2 



Other birds recorded from this region are the yellow-billed 

 cuckoo; several woodpeckers, including the rare ivorybill; a screech 

 owl, already mentioned, which offers a pleasant contrast to some of 

 the unspeakable spiders and insects mentioned in this paper by its 

 conjugal fidelity and parental affection, for it remains mated for 

 life and defends its young most courageously; the whippoorwill, 

 which is a winter resident, the allied Chuck-will's-widow and the 

 Florida nighthawk ; our own little ruby-throated hummingbird ; the 

 kingbird; the crested flycatcher; the phcebe; purple martin; barn 

 swallow; tree swallow; mockingbird; catbird; long-billed marsh 

 wren ; and the Florida wren already mentioned. To the last-named 



1 See Chapman, Birds of Eastern America, 3d ed., p. 143. 1896. 



2 Many other birds of this region occur also in the West Indies, or are there repre- 

 sented by closely allied varieties or subspecies. The reader's attention is called to Mr. 

 Wetmore's monograph on the Birds of Porto Rico already quoted, issued as U. S. Dept 

 Agr. Bull. No. 326. 1914. 



