l8o BROOKLYN INSTITUTE MUSEUM. SCIENCE BULLETIN 2. 6. 
Taciiyphonus uufus (Boddaert). 
Taiiagra riifa Bodd., Tabl. PI. Enl. 1783. p. 44. 
Tachyphonus rufns Berlepsch & Hartert, p. 21. 
Not uncommon, but usually a shy bird : found both in the open 
thinly timbered borders of the sa\annas, and in densely timbered 
regions. 
The eye is seal brown; maxilla black, mandible plumbeous with 
a blackish tip ; feet black. 
A female, apparently adult, taken June loth has a number of 
black feathers on the right side of the face, neck and breast. 
The nesting season extends from March to .May. Xests are 
usually from 0.6 to 1.5 m. from the ground, placed in clumps of low 
trees or bushes in the sparsely wooded savanna regions. Two eggs 
constitute a full set. 
A nest with two slightly incubated eggs was taken at Caicara 
April 7th, 1907. It was only about 60 cm. from the ground in a 
clump of thorny palm stems. Outwardly, the nest is composed of 
coarse, short pieces and strips of soft inner bark from the rotting 
stubs of some nearby trees, short strips torn from dead banana leaves, 
and a few weed stems. Inside there is a thin lining of plant tendrils 
and fine, black horse-hair-like vegetable fibers. The nest measures : 
outside, 14 cm. in diameter by 7 cm. in depth; inside, 7 cm. diameter 
by 4.5 cm. in depth.' The eggs are ovate in form, and measure 17.25 .\ 
22.25 and 17 X 22.25 "■"■'I- respectively. One is white with a faint greyish 
wash, the other has a mere suggestion of rufous in the ground color. 
The markings are comparatively few, scattered chiefly about the larger 
end, and consist of irregularly rounded spots and dots of dark clove 
brown overlying similar spots of pale lavender. Many of the larger 
clove brown spots are surrounded by rufous as though the color had 
spread or "washed." 
In the American Museum collection is a male collected by Klages 
at Ciudad Bolivar that is just finishing the moult assuming the black 
plumage of the adult. l)ut shows a few lirown feathers scattered 
through the plumage; one ouler rectrix is black at the base and brown 
at the tip. 
'A nest of this species taken on the heights of Aripo, Trinidad. March 24. 1907, has been already 
described by the writer {Sci. Bull. I. p. 359). Only one of the eggs of the set contained i ' 
saved; that is ovate in form and measures 24.5 x 18.5 mm. It is white > " " 
with a few irregular spots and small dots of a blackish clove brown; I 
underlying lavender markings. 
