Plantain-eaters 45 1 



of denudation, whereas one or both ends are nearly always denuded. ... I 

 have found eggs and young in February and throughout the succeeding months 

 to August, two or three broods probably being reared. I have also seen young, 

 fully fledged but unable to fly, hopping about the branches of the nesting tree." 



The Groove-billed Ani (C. sulcirostris), which is so named from the presence 

 of several distinct longitudinal grooves on the upper mandible, extends from the 

 lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas and Lower California to Peru, while the Great 

 Ani (C. major] is found only in South America ; it is distinguished at once by its 

 large size, its total length being from eighteen to twenty inches as against twelve 

 or thirteen in the other species and more glossy plumage. The habits of these 

 are similar to those of the Black Ani. 



The Guira Cuckoo (Guira guira} of Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina is known 

 from the other members of the subfamily by the slender bill and crest of long 

 feathers. It is a rather handsome bird, about sixteen inches long, dark brown 

 above, becoming rufous on the crest, white on the rump, and dull white below, with 

 the feathers of the throat and breast marked with long, narrow shaft stripes. The 

 square tail is nine or ten inches long, the two middle feathers being dark brown, 

 and the others three-colored, being buff at the base, dark glossy green in the middle, 

 and white at the tips, and as it is spread out like a fan when the bird is flying, it 

 "forms a conspicuous and beautiful object." A very complete account of this 

 species is given by Mr. Hudson, from which it appears that in Buenos Ayres it is 

 one of the few resident birds that suffer much from the cold, it being a common 

 sight to see a dozen or twenty of them clustered together three or four deep on a 

 horizontal branch of a tree sheltered from the wind, where they pass the night. 

 "If the morning is fair," he says, "the flock betakes itself to some large tree, on 

 which the sun shines, to settle on the topmost twigs on the western side, each bird 

 with its wings drooping and its back turned toward the sun. In this spiritless 

 attitude they spend an hour or two warming their blood and drying the dew 

 from their scant dress. . . . With the return of warm weather this species 

 becomes active, noisy, and the gayest of birds." The nest, a large rough structure 

 of twigs and lined with green leaves, is placed usually in a thorny bush, and the 

 eggs, six or seven or exceptionally as many as fourteen in number, are an 

 exquisite turquoise-blue, roughly reticulated or laced with a snow-white, soft, cal- 

 careous substance which is easily removed or soiled. The young, however, are 

 extremely ugly and the nest and themselves are soon in a very unclean and ill- 

 smelling condition. 



THE PLANTAIN-EATERS 



/ 



(Family Musophagidai) 



Most closely related to the Cuckoos, at least as worked out in the system 

 we are following, are the Plantain-eaters, or Touracos, a small group of often 

 brilliant and curious birds, mostly with handsome erectile crests, confined in 



