Cape San Antonio, Buenos Ayres. 25 
larger than itself. It is a most familiar and impertinent in- 
dividual, and will alight within two yards of one, cocking its 
big black head to one side, and remarking, very audibly, that 
it sees you perfectly. On the whole, too, it is considered 
to be a bird of rather bad character, a feathered croque- 
mitaine, a noisy, aggressive, obtrusive bully. 
Decidedly omnivorous in its food, flesh, fish, grain, vege- 
‘tables, and fruit all disappear with remarkable rapidity into 
that immense black beak. I have been amused at the way 
it manipulates a piece of meat, whacking it alternately on 
each side of it against the branch or rail on which it is sitting, 
preparatory to swallowing the morsel. It almost gives one both 
toothache and headache to merely look at the operation. 
The freshwater mollusk already mentioned as constituting 
the food of Rostrhamus sociabilis is also greatly affected by 
the Bien-te-veo ; and one frequently finds old cow-bones close 
to the swamps, which, by the broken shells scattered round 
them, indicate the use to which they have been put. 
The young are not difficult to rear; but as their note is 
any thing but musical, and a savage dig from the beak is 
rather unpleasant, the incentive to do so is not at all great. 
Breeding-Notes.—There is no attempt made to conceal 
the big nest of Pitangus bellicosus ; one might as well try to 
hide a hay-stack. It is built of dry grass, fibres or roots, 
wool, hair, and feathers (the wool, however, is the principal 
material) —in shape spherical, a little over a foot in diameter, 
and entered by a hole in the side. While the outside is very 
ragged and irregular, the interior is neatly felted with wool 
and hair. It is placed in a tree, often at no great height 
from the ground. Nestsin swamps, too, are not uncommon, 
built into the reeds, and sometimes only a foot above the 
water. 
The nest is begun as early as the 2nd of August, though I 
have never taken eggs before the 21st of September. The 
first brood (for I believe P. bellicosus has two in the season) 
has flown by the middle of November ; and fresh eggs may be 
taken as late as the 22nd of December. 
The clutch of eggs never exceeds five; but four is the more 
