52 



PICARIAN BIRDS. 



Jos^ C. Zeledon, to whom I am indebted for the above notes, also tells me that 

 if one of these nests be opened at about the time the young are ready to leave 

 the nest, it is found to be one of the dirtiest, most foul-smelling places that can 

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

 pretty well. They have the same coloura as the adults, but the bill is much 

 shorter, more depressed, and the edges without serration. The tail is shoi-ter 

 than the wings, and nearly square. The eye is sepia-brown, not chestnut, as 

 in the old bird. . . . With the tii-st 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 notea" 

 Broad Beaked In the single representative of this genus (Eitmomota suj^r- 



Motmot. ciliaris) the beak is very much flattened, and has a grooved ridge 

 on the culmen with hair-like rictal bristlea The tail is long and exceeds the wing 

 in length, and has a broad racket at the end. The colour 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 15 inches, inhabits Central America from 

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

 torovocea " 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 

 laboured respiration 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 barranco or bank in which it is situated. The size 

 of the orifice is sufiicient 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 number, 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 abandoned ones will be 

 found perfectly smooth, whereas the mouth of those which contain eggs or young 

 is 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." 



