176 A YEAR OF COSTA RICAN NATURAL HISTORY 



inches long In the male, sixteen inches in the female, on the 

 average. Both species are glossy black and dark chestnut 

 with mostly yellow tails. Technically, Zarhynchus has the 

 bill much swollen basally, forming a broad rounded frontal 

 shield whose width is decidedly greater than the distance 

 from the nostril to the tip of the maxilla, while in Gymnosti- 

 nops the basal portion of the bill is less expanded and the 

 frontal shield is less than half as wide as from nostril to tip 

 of maxilla (Ridgway). 



The chorus of bird-song around our cabin before sunrise 

 each morning was always a pleasant feature and we regretted 

 that we were not ornithologists to appreciate it fully. These 

 mornings alone were enough to refute the popular misstate- 

 ment that "birds in the tropics have no song." In March 

 the drumming of the tree-frogs was incessant after nightfall, 

 accompanied by a two-noted scream which, so far as it went, 

 suggested a whippoorwill and which could be heard at in- 

 tervals all night and after daybreak although it ceased before 

 sunrise. In April we occupied a room in Mrs. Ridgway's 

 eating-house instead of our cabin. This room had unglazed 

 windows, guarded by solid shutters of galvanized iron with a 

 wooden frame, so that when closed to keep out rain both 

 light and air were also excluded. Above the shutter was an 

 open scroll work designed probably to admit a trifling amount 

 of air when the shutter was closed. One day as we sat inside 

 this room two wrens, after alighting on the top of a shutter, 

 flew to these small openings and peeped in at us. Their 

 little brown heads and round black eyes were very amusing 

 as they were thrust through hole after hole in the scroll 

 work, and the owners thereof scrutinized us carefully first 

 with one eye then the other. The birds continued this for 

 about ten minutes before they finally flew away. 



A handsome woodpecker with a large crest of flaming red 

 feathers frequented the laguna in the last of July. He had 



