ANIS. 



383 



tained more than three eggs, although I allowed incubation to begin before taking the 

 eggs, as I expected the birds to lay more. Nearly every nest I found after the middle 

 of May contained four or five eggs ; and I account for the greater number laid later in 

 the season by the fact that insect food during the dry season, which includes April and 

 May, is comparatively scarce. Only occasionally have I found eggs in different stages 

 of incubation, and I do not believe that there was over a week's difference in the time 

 of laying of the eggs in any nests I found. The food of this species consists chiefly of 

 insects, particularly grasshoppers, but embraces occasionally a lizard or a field mouse. 

 I do not believe they kill and eat rattlesnakes, as has been sometimes reported." 



FIG. 185. Crotophaya ani, smooth-billed ani. 



Finally, we have to mention the small American family comprising the two genera 

 Guira and Crotophaga, characterized by having only eight tail-feathers, coincident 

 with a true bronchial syrinx. 



Three species compose the latter genus, two of which belong to the North Ameri- 

 can fauna, as occasional visitors to the southern parts, the smooth-billed ani (C. ani) 

 to southern Florida, the groove-billed ani ( C. sulcirostris) to the valley of the Rio 

 Grande, Texas. Both species are black, with steel blue reflections above, but distin- 

 guished by the characters of the bill, as indicated by the names. 



We have on a previous page related the vagaries of the Old World cuckoos in 

 depositing their eggs in other birds' nests. The breeding habits of the anis, however, 

 are very different, but not less remarkable or aberrant. Unfortunately, no recent 

 author has had the opportunity of studying the process to such an extent as to fur- 



