570 Annals of the Carnegie Museum. 



They are very fond of building their nests in the trees of citrus- 

 fruits, especially bitter orange seedlings. The nest is a huge, bulky 

 affair, made entirely of twigs, usually with thorns on them, and lined 

 inside with a quantity of green leaves, usually orange leaves. There 

 are always a large number of eggs in a nest and as there are never 

 many nests in one locality, it is quite obvious that several females lay 

 in the same nest, taking turns at incubating. The number of eggs in 

 each nest ranges from six to twelve. They are elliptical, blue in color, 

 but always overlaid with a white chalky substance, easily scratched off, 

 which is always more or less scraped and obliterated by the claws of 

 the birds in turning the eggs. Eggs measure: 33 to 36.5 x 24 to 



27 mm. 



Family CAPITONID^. 



302. Capito bourcieri salvini (Shelley). 



Capito bourcieri Lawrence, Ann. Lye. N. Y., IX, 1868, 130 (Barranca [J. Car- 

 miol], Turrialba [Cooper]). — Frantzius, Jour, fur Orn., 1869, 363 (Costa 

 Rica). — Boucard, P. Z. S., 1878, 47 (Orosi and Navarro). — Zeledon, An. 

 Mus. Nac. de C. R., I, 1887, 123 (Naranjo de Cartago, Birris de Cartago, 

 Jimenez). — Cherrie, Expl. Zool. en C. R., 1890-1, 49 (Terraba, rare). 



Capito hartlaubi Lawrence, Ann. Lye. N. Y., IX, 1868, 130 (Barranca [J. Car- 

 miol]). — Frantzius, Jour, fiir Orn., 1869, 363 (Costa Rica). 



Capito salvini Shelley, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., XIX, 1891, 119 (Barranca 

 [J. Carmiol]). — Salvin and Godman, Biol. Centr.-Am., Aves, II, 549 (Costa 

 Rica and Panama). 



U. S. Nat. Museum : Guayabo (Ridgway and Zeledon), Los Reyes 



and La Lagunaria de Dota (Basulto), La Estrella de Cartago and 



Jimenez (Castro). 

 Bangs Collection : Azahar de Cartago, Cariblanco de Sarapiqui, Car- 



rillo (Underwood). 

 Carnegie Museum : Carrillo, four specimens (Carriker), Tobosi 



(Francisco Ulloa Cooper). Five skins. 



The Costa Rican bird, known as C. salvini Shelley, is certainly only 

 a subspecies of the South American C. bourcieri (Lafr. ). The males 

 are indistinguishable, the sole difference between the two forms being 

 the presence or absence of the blue-green frontal band in the female, 

 while birds taken in northern Colombia show indications of this band, 

 being more or less intermediate between the two extreme forms. 



C. b, salvini is widely distributed over Costa Rica, covering the 

 highlands and both slopes down to about 1,000 feet above sea-level. 

 It is found in the forest, usually rather high up in the trees, and is 

 quite solitary in its habits. 



