United States or Guernsey ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Salvin's interesting case of the apparently inherited effects of mot-mots biting off the barbs of their own tail- feathers. We see the projecting part in this condition in the Macacus brunneus, and absolutely aborted in the M. ecaudatus and in several of the higher apes.
There were also two species of grouse and a ground pigeon, all good eating. Amongst the smaller birds were trogons, mot-mots, toucans, and woodpeckers. The trogons are general feeders. I have taken from their crops the remains of fruits, grasshoppers, beetles, termites, and even small crabs and land shells. Three species are not uncommon in the forest around Santo Domingo.
I listened with pleasure to the last hoarse cries of the mot-mots, and tried to impress on my memory the curious forms of vegetation the palms, the gigantic arums, the tangled lianas, and perching epiphytes. After reaching Pital I rode rapidly over the savannahs, where the swallows were skimming over the top of the long grass to frighten up the insects which rested there.
Climate of the north-eastern side of Nicaragua. Excursions around Santo Domingo. The Artigua. Corruption of ancient names. Butterflies, spiders, and wasps. Humming-birds, beetles, and ants. Plants and trees. Timber. Monkey attacked by eagle. White-faced monkey. Anecdotes of a tame one. Curassows and other game birds. Trogons, woodpeckers, mot-mots, and toucans.
Trogons, parrots, toucans, mot-mots, and many other birds build in holes of trees or in the ground, and these, with their heads ever turned to the only entrance, are in the best possible position to pick off singly the scouts when they approach, thus effectually preventing them from carrying to the main army intelligence about the nest.
In the breeding season, the trogons are continually calling out to each other, and are thus easily discovered. They are called "viduas," that is, "widows," by the Spaniards. This species feeds on fruits, as well as on grubs taken out of dead trees. The mot-mots have all hoarse croak-like cries, heard at a great distance in the forest, and feed on large beetles and other insects.
Proposed improvement of the river. Progress of the delta. Mosquitoes. Disagreeable night. Fine morning. Vegetation of the banks. Seripiqui river. Mot-mots. Foraging ants: their method of hunting. Ant-thrushes. They attack the nests of other ants. Birds' nests, how preserved from them. Reasoning powers in ants. Parallel between the Mammalia and the Hymenoptera. Utopia.
Several South American birds have found their way into Mexico, as the mot-mots and trogons, the harpy and carracara eagles, the hang-nest, the true and red tanagers, parrots, parrakeets, macaws, creepers, crest-finches, and the fork-tailed and even-tailed humming-birds.
Word Of The Day