254 ^ YEAR OF COSTA RICAN NATURAL HISTORY 



it again and so have nothing but this single member in my 

 possession now, but this disjecta would seem to place the 

 insect in the genus Anisoscelis of the family Coreidse. 



Later that same day it rained and while sitting on the 

 porch of the second story, I watched the dragonfly Orthemis 

 ferruginea fly to and fro over the pool alongside the tracks 

 in spite of the (moderate) rain, although dragonflies are 

 usually fair weather insects. Four or five green parrakeets 

 {Conurus finschi?) flew screaming to a tree on the opposite 

 side of the river, their green color showing well as they flew. 

 By 3.45 P. M. the rain had ceased and I walked north along 

 the track. Not far from the station, a curious bird whose 

 character I could not make out, flew across the track and into 

 the wild cane, of which there was much between the railroad 

 and the river both above and below Peralta station. The 

 cane was now ten to fifteen feet high. I kept looking into 

 it as I approached the place where the bird had entered, 

 hardly expecting to see it again. But when I reached the 

 place, there on a slanting cane, sat my first toucan, big beak 

 and all. J stopped to look at it, it sat and looked at me, 

 giving me the chance to make mental note of its colors be- 

 fore it flew ofi^. It was chiefly black, with a yellow breast 

 bounded with black below, and with an isolated black 

 streak in the middle of the yellow, the rump red both above 

 and below. It was Pteroglossus torquatus, one of the smaller 

 toucans of Costa Rica, this species being about eighteen 

 inches long. Similar to it, and occurring chiefly, if not 

 solelyj on the Pacific slope according to Carriker, is Pt. 

 frantzii, which has a wide crimson band, sometimes mixed 

 with black, across the middle of the yellow belly. Another 

 genus commonly found in Costa Rica has a yellow throat and 

 black breast; this is Rhamphastos. R. tocard, the "quioro" 

 of Costa Ricans, is twenty-two to twenty-four inches long 

 and has the tip of the maxilla bright yellow. R. brevicari- 



