836 Annals of the Carnegie Museum. 



scattering, and are always seen in and about the coffee plantations. The 

 birds make a great variety of peculiar noises, which are not only vocal, 

 but produced by the remiges and rectrices in flying. Their manner of 

 nesting is almost too well known to mention here, but I will give a brief 

 description of their nests and eggs. The birds congregate together in 

 colonies of varying size, from six or eight to as many as one hundred pairs 

 building their nests in one large tree. The nests are long, purse-shaped 

 structures, woven from the fibres of the common "Spanish Moss," with the 

 entrance at the top, and are often as much as five feet in length and six 

 or seven inches in diameter at the bottom. Two eggs seem to be the 

 usual complement, and are deposited from about the ioth to the 15th 

 of March. The eggs are pale blue, sparsely spotted and streaked with 

 blackish. 



Family TANGARID^E. 



653. Mitrospingus cassini (Lawrence). 



Tachyphonus cassini Lawrence, Ann. Lye. N. Y., VII, 1861, 297 (Lion Hill, 

 Panama; coll. G. N. Lawrence); IX, 1868, 101 (Angostura, Costa Rica 

 [J. Carmiol]). — Frantzius, Jour, fur Orn., 1869, 299 (Costa Rica). 



Eucometis cassinii Sclater and Salvin, P. Z. S., 1864, 351, pi. 30 (Panama). 



Eucometis cassini Salvin and Godman, Biol. Centr.-Am., Aves, I, 1883, 307 

 (Costa Rican references). — Sclater, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., XI, 1886, 219 

 (Costa Rica [Carmiol]). — Zeledon, An. Mus. Nac. de C. R., I, 1887, no 

 (Costa Rica). — Ridgway, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., XIV, 1891, 473 (Jimenez 

 [Alfaro]; descr. of young). 



Mitrospingus cassini Bangs, Proc. New Eng. Zool. Club, II, 1900, 29 (Loma 

 del Leon, Panama). — Ridgway, Birds N. and Mid. Amer., II, 1902, 168 

 (Costa Rica (Angostura and Jimenez) southward through western Colombia 

 to western Ecuador). 



U. S. Nat. Museum: Guayabo, one 9 (Ridgway and Zeledon), Jimenez 



(Alfaro). 

 Bangs Collection: Carrillo (Underwood). , 



C. H. Lankester Collection: Guacimo and Tuis. 



Carnegie Museum: Guapiles (Carriker & Crawford), Guacimo, Car- 

 rillo, El Hogar, Bonilla (Carriker). Fourteen skins. 

 This peculiar tanager is confined to the Caribbean lowlands and foot- 

 hills, from near sea-level up to about 1,500 or 2,000 feet, but is most abun- 

 dant at about 600 to 800 feet, where the foot-hills end and the coastal 

 plain begins. They are found only in the heavy forest, and are very partial 

 to low swampy places and the thick underbrush along the margins of 

 small streams running through the forest. Their habits are very similar 



