Mr. 0. Salvin on the Costa-Rican Bell-hird. 93 



sound or song from any of the winged inhabitants of the forest, 

 not even the clearly pronounced * Whip poor Will' from the Goat- 

 sucker, causes such astonishment as the toll of the Campanero. 

 With many of the feathered race, h6 pays the common tribute of 

 a morning and evening song ; and even when the meridian sun 

 lias shut in silence the mouths of almost the whole of animated 

 nature, the Campanero still cheers the forest. You may hear 

 his toll and then a pause for a minute, then another toll and then 

 a pause again, and then a toll and again a pause. Then he is 

 silent for six or eight minutes and then another toll, and so on. 

 Acteon v* ould stop in mid chase, Maria would defer her evening 

 song, and Orpheus himself would drop his lute to listen to him, 

 so sweet, so novel and romantic is the toll of the pretty snow- 

 white Campanero. He is never seen to feed with the other 

 Cotingas, nor is it known in what part of Guiana he makes his 

 nest." ('Wanderings in South America,' Ed.,1836, pp. 120, 121.) 



Another species is described as having a note like the sound 

 produced by the blows of a hammer on an anvil. 



From dried specimens it is impossible to make any satisfactory 

 dissection of the caruncles, to ascertain whether or not any 

 communication exists through means of which air could be 

 passed so as to inflate them and cause them to become rigid. 

 On opening the caruncle of an immature male I found that fine 

 fibrous tissues adhered to the enclosing skin. This would show 

 that in life the caruncle is not hollow, and that, if the internal 

 structure is cellular and capable of inflation by air, these 

 tissues would prevent the outer skin from swelling and taking 

 a bladder-like form. If inflation actually is produced, as analogy 

 with the Cayenne bird as described above by Mr. Waterton 

 would certainly suggest, it still remains to be seen from what 

 source the air-pressure is derived. The question too arises is 

 the inflating-apparatus, if I may so call it, the growth of the 

 maturing male, as are the caruncles themselves ? 



My own impression is that no inflation takes place, and that 

 the bird possesses little or no voluntary muscular control o\er 

 these excrescences, but that contraction or elongation takes 

 place as in the fleshy protuberance over the bill of the Common 

 Turkey. The same appears to be the case with the several mem- 



