30.2 Dr. Emil A. Goeldi on the Nesting of 



Andreas Goeldi^ after long experience, is a perfect Nyctibius- 

 hunter. Notwithstanding our familiarity with the habits of 

 this species of Nyctibius, for three years we were never 

 lucky enough to discover its breeding-i)lace, though we 

 made all possible efforts. Before I left Colonia Alpina I 

 strongly recommended the continuation of these efforts to my 

 cousin, and likewise as regards Hydropsalis*. At length, 

 some months after my arrival on the Amazons, I received 

 the agreeable news of tlie discovery of an authentic nest 

 of N. jamaicensis. My cousin's letter was accompanied 

 by detailed notes and photographs, and when, iu August 

 1895, I made a journey back to Rio de Janeiro, I had, 

 on a short visit to Colonia Alpina, the opportunity of 

 seeing the localities and studying the facts, which were as 

 follows : — 



On the 24th of November, 1894, the son of one of our 

 neighbours and colonists brought to us a dead male Nyctibius 

 jamaicensis and a fresh egg, telling us that he had shot the 

 ''Urutao'^ standing upright on the top of a stump. After 

 having killed the bird he climbed up the stump and found, 

 as he had. supposed, that the bird had its breeding-place 

 there. In a slight depression on the top he found the egg, 

 which he carefully brought to my cousin, together with the 

 bird itself. My cousin immediately went to the spot pointed 

 out by the boy, and inquired minutely into every detail. 



The locality is on a sloping hill on the left side of a brook, 

 tributary of the Uio Alpina, which runs through a valley 

 parallel to that of the centre of the colony. In 1891 and 

 1892 one of our colonists, now dead, had a maize plantation 

 there, but since that time the ground has become what in 

 Brazil is called " capoeira,^^ i. e., a hill covered with shrubs 

 and small trees of about 2 m. in height. Along the de- 

 clivity of the right side of the brook, at a distance of about 



* Hydropsalis forcijHtfa is common in tlie Serra clos Orgaos. We often 

 ehot two or three specimens in the same night. But, iiotwith,standiugthe 

 indications given about the nidification of Hyclropsalis iu Uruguay by 

 0. V. Aplin (Ibis, 1894, p. 188), no breeding-place has yet been discovered 

 by us at Colonia Alpina. 



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