1816 THE PICARIAN BIRDS 



imagined. At the time the young leave the nest, they are able to fly pretty well. 

 They have the same colors as the adults, but the bill is much shorter, more de- 

 pressed, and the edges without serration. The tail is shorter than the wings, and 

 nearly square. The eyes are sepia brown, not chestnut, as in the old bird. 

 With the first utterances of the notes of the adults, the peculiar jerky motions of 

 the tail commenced. It was most amusing to watch the four birds sitting in a row 

 together, almost motionless, only giving the tail first a jerk to this side, then to 

 that, now up and now down, to see it hold for the space of a minute almost at 

 right angles to the body, and then go with a whisk to the other side, the birds all 

 the time uttering their peculiar cooing notes. ' ' 



In the single representative of this genus (Eumomota superciliaris} 



the beak is very much flattened, and has a grooved ridge on the cul- 

 Motmot 



men with hair-like rictal bristles. The tail is long and exceeds the 



wing in length, and has a broad racket at the end. The color of the species is 

 grass green, with the mantle cinnamon, the crown grass green with a broad white 

 eyebrow, shading off behind into silvery cobalt; at the base of the cheeks a few 

 spots of silvery blue; the under parts are rusty, inclining to grass green on the fore 

 neck and breast, and to oily green on the sides of the face and throat, in the centre 

 of which is a black streak, bordered on each side with silvery blue feathers. This 

 species, which has a total length of fifteen inches, inhabits Central America from 

 Yucatan to Costa Rica, where these birds are locally known by the name of toro- 

 voces. "In the breeding season," writes Mr. R. Owen, "these birds are in full 

 song, if their croaking note may be so termed, and are as noisy and busy then as 

 they are mute and torpid during the rest of the year. I do not know of any sound 

 that will convey a better idea of the note than that produced by the labored respi- 

 ration occurring after each time the air is exhausted in the lungs by the spasms of 

 the whooping cough. The nest of the torovoz is subterranean, and is usually found 

 in the banks of rivers, or of water courses which empty into them. The excavation 

 is horizontal, and at a distance from the surface, varying with the depth of the bar- 

 ranco or bank in which it is situated. The size of the orifice is sufficient to allow 

 the bare arm to be introduced, the shape being round and regular for three or at 

 most nine feet, where the shaft terminates in a circular chamber about eight inches 

 in diameter and five inches high. In this chamber the eggs, usually four in num- 

 ber are deposited upon the bare soil. The banks of the river which winds through 

 the plain of San Geronimo are full of excavations made by this bird that is to say, 

 in such places where the soil is light and the bank chops down perpendicularly. It 

 is a simple matter to hit upon those which are inhabited, as the entrance to the aban- 

 doned ones will be found perfectly smooth, whereas the mouths of those which con- 

 tain eggs or young are ploughed up in two parallel furrows made by the old bird 

 when passing in and out. The torovoz is exceedingly tame, and when started from 

 its nest will, perched upon a bough a few yards distant, watch the demolition of 

 its habitation with a degree of attention and fancied security more easily imagined 

 than described." 



