NATURAL HISTORY WORK IN CART AGO 7 1 



sis peruviana. This sparrow is about the same size as the 

 English sparrow but much handsomer, with a reddish streak 

 over each eye and a greater contrast of light and dark 

 browns on the back. It has a pleasing song and is less 

 aggressive and pugnacious than the English sparrow but is 

 much like it in its tameness and intimacy with man and his 

 dwellings. The notes of the common Costa Rican robin 

 {Planesticus grayi casius) in April, its size and shape and 

 general behavior were so like our own that I never grew ac- 

 customed to seeing its yellowish-brown breast instead of a 

 reddish one. In April we also heard a meadow lark (Stur- 

 nella magna alticola) with a note much like that of our 

 northern bird. Late in December we saw a night hawk, 

 very close to (if not the same) subspecies {Chordeiles vir- 

 ginianus virginianus) that we have in Philadelphia from 

 May to September. It looked quite homelike but we did 

 not hear its familiar cry. Our northern subspecies has been 

 observed in Costa Rica, in May and in September by Mr. 

 Carriker. 



Although the black vulture (Catharista urubu brasiliensis) 

 is the common one all over Costa Rica we once, on Septem- 

 ber 9, saw a pair of red-headed vultures or "zonchiches" 

 {Cathartes aura aura) in a lane in San Rafael. It was the 

 second time we had seen this species; the first occasion was a 

 few days before near Alajuela when we met a pair in com- 

 pany with three or four of the black species, eating the car- 

 cass of a small dog. The black species Is entirely slaty- 

 black including the naked skin around the head and neck, 

 the beak and the legs; it is called "zopilote" by the Costa 

 Ricans and "jim crow" by the Americans. The other 

 species has the head more slender, red, beak white, legs 

 reddish-white and the remainder of the body brownish-gray. 

 It is a close relative of the common Turkey Buzzard of 

 North America, but Is smaller; the brown borders to the 



