PICARIAN BIRDS. 
48 
moment or two between each exclamation, and you will have some idea of the 
moaning of the great goatsucker of Demerara.” Mr. Stolzmann, too, states that 
in Peru the great wood-nightjar {Nyctibius grandis) has a curious habit of 
perching upon dead branches, so as to look like a knot or prolongation of the 
bough, so that it takes an experienced eye to detect them. “ Its cry,” he writes, 
“ is one of the most extraordinary of any bird I know, and consists of five notes, 
descending gradually one-fifth in the scale, and producing an uncanny impression 
during moonlight nights.” 
The Todies. 
Family Todidie. 
Curious little green and red birds, commonly known as todies, constitute 
the family Todidce, all the members of which are included in the single genus 
Todus. They are represented only by five species, four of which respectively 
inhabit the islands of Cuba, Jamaica, San Domingo, and Porto Pico, while the 
fifth ( T. pidcherrimus ) has been stated to come from Jamaica, although its real 
home is still unknown. I 11 these birds the beak is long and flattened, the palate 
of the desmognathous type, the breast-bone has four closed perforations on its 
hinder border, and the oil-gland is tufted; while there are twelve tail-feathers, 
and the first toe is present. The habits of the todies are said to be very much 
like those of flycatchers, but Mr. Scott states that sometimes they hunt insects in 
trees and bushes after the manner of the American warblers. He found them 
to be entirely insect-eaters, and no vegetable remains were met with in the 
stomach of those he has dissected. The todies are becoming rarer in Jamaica, 
owing to the introduction of the mungoose into the island, as the burrows on 
which the eggs are laid are very shallow and easily robbed by the animal. Of 
the Jamaica tody ( T . viridis ) Mr. Taylor writes that it “ appears to be very 
generally dispersed throughout the island, and may even be said to be common in 
most parts. In all localities that I have visited, whether on the mountains at high 
elevations or among the woods of the plains, it has appeared equally abundant at 
all seasons. Banks of ravines and gullies, where the fringing forest is of dense 
and varied but slender growth, hedges with deep banks, woods and thickets 
bordering many roadways, and especially the steep, narrow bridle-paths that wind 
up the mountain-sides, where the banks are high, may be mentioned as some 
favoured haunts. But of all localities there are few, perhaps, where these birds 
occur constantly in such numbers, or which offer more perfect situations for 
nesting, than the gullies before mentioned. Many of these dry water-courses, 
that during prolonged rains become transformed into rushing, impassable torrents, 
are of considerable extent, and their sandy beds may be traced for miles inland. 
One gully, in particular, where most of my observations on the habits of the todies 
have been made, has a wide and tortuous course, and banks that vary in places 
from low, weed - covered mounds to precipitous cliffs of clay, between ten and 
twenty feet in height. In their choice of a situation for nesting, the birds are 
somewhat particular, preference being given to low, overhanging, weed-covered 
banks, where the soil is light and friable. The tunnels are rarely, if ever, in 
