48 PICARIAN BIRDS. 



moment or two between each exclamation, and you will have some idea of the 

 moaning of the great goatsucker of Demerara." Mr. Stolzmann, too, states that 

 in Peru the great wood-nightjar {Nyctihius graiidis) has a curious habit of 

 perching upon dead branches, so as to look like a knot or prolongation of the 

 bough, so that it takes an experienced eye to detect them. " Its cry," he writes, 

 " is one of the most extraordinary of any bird I know, and consists of five notes, 

 descending gradually one-fifth in the scale, and producing an uncanny impression 

 during moonlight nights." 



The Todies. 



Family TODID^E. 



Curious little green and red birds, commonly known as todies, constitute 

 the family Todidce, all the members of which are included in the single genus 

 Todas. They are represented only by five species, four of which respectively 

 inhabit the islands of Cuba, Jamaica, San Domingo, and Porto Rico, while the 

 fifth {T. piddierrmius) has been stated to come from Jamaica, although its real 

 home is still unknown. In these birds the beak is long and flattened, the palate 

 of the desinognathous type, the breast-bone has four closed perforations on its 

 hinder border, and the oil-gland is tufted ; while there are twelve tail-feathers, 

 and the first too is present. The habits of the todies are said to be very much 

 like those of flycatchers, but Mr. Scott states that sometimes they hunt insects in 

 trees and bushes after the manner of the American warblers. He found them 

 to be entirely insect-eaters, and no vegetable remains were met with in the 

 stomach of those he has dissected. The todies are becoming rarer in Jamaica, 

 owinu- to the introduction of the mungoose into the island, as the burrows on 

 which the eggs are laid are very shallow and easily robbed by the animal. Of 

 the Jamaica tody {T. viridls) Mr. Taylor writes that it "appears to be very 

 generally dispersed throughout the island, and may even be said to be common in 

 most parts. In all localities that I have visited, wdiether on the mountains at high 

 elevations or among the woods of the plains, it has appeared equally abundant at 

 all seasons. Banks of ravines and gullies, where the fringing forest is of dense 

 and varied but slender grow^th, hedges with deep banks, woods and thickets 

 bordering many roadways, and especially the steep, narrow bridle-paths that wind 

 up the mountain-sides, where the banks are high, may be mentioned as some 

 favoured haunts. But of all localities there are few, perhaps, where these birds 

 occur constantly in such numbers, or which offer more perfect situations for 

 nesting, than the gullies before mentioned. Many of these dry water-courses, 

 that during prolonged rains become transformed into rushing, impassable torrents, 

 are of considerable extent, and their sandy beds may be traced for miles inland. 

 One gully, in particular, where most of my observations on the habits of the todies 

 have been made, has a wide and tortuous course, and banks that vary in places 

 from low, weed - covered mounds to precipitous cliffs of clay, between ten and 

 twenty feet in height. In their choice of a situation for nesting, the birds are 

 somewhat particular, preference being given to low, overhanging, weed-covered 

 banks, where the soil is light and friable. The tunnels are rarely, if ever, in 



