The Nesting of Some Venezuelan Birds

Abstract

My visit to Venezuela was supported by a grant from the Frank M. Chapman Memorial Fund of the American Museum of Natural History of New York. The farm on which my wife and I lived and worked was the property of the Venezuelan bird artist Walter Arp, who with his wife Elena gave us unforgettable hospitality. Paul Schwartz arranged for our sojourn here, helped us to get established in Venezuela, and showed us various parts of the country. To all these people and institutions, I am profoundly grateful. While I continued to watch, a second jacamar, quite similar to the first in appearance, flew up from the precipitous slope below the roadway with earth on its long bill, an almost certain indication that it was nesting. I promptly located the nest of the only pair of Pale-headed Jacamars that I have ever seen. The burrow had been dug into a bare, vertical wall of clay, at a point three feet above its base. At its mouth, the narrow tunnel was only 1% inches high and 1% inches wide. Probing it carefully with a slender vine, I found its length to be 31 inches. I wondered why the burrow of this small jacamar was so much longer than any of the numerous tunnels of species of the larger G&&z that I had examined. THE NESTLINGS AND THEIR CARE PALE-HEADED JACAMAR On the morning of 3 May, as I walked along a rough road that skirted the edge of a lightly wooded ravine, a bird new to me flew into a treetop with a butterfly in its bill. After knocking the insect against its perch until the wings floated down, it swallowed the body. This bird’s slender form and long, thin bill assured me that it was a jacamar, although it was smaller and far dulIer than any other member of this charming family that I knew. Its head, hindneck, and sides of the neck were pale grayish brown. The remaining upper parts, including the wings and tail, were dull blackish with a faint bluish and purplish gloss. The chin and throat were buffv: the foreneck and sides dark brown. enclosine a whitish triangular area on the center of ‘the breast. The base of this triangle rested upon a broad band of chestnut across the upper abdomen, The lower abdomen and under tail coverts were dull white. The bill was black, the eyes dark, and the legs and toes blackish. Through my binoculars I could detect only one hind toe, instead of the two that I expected in a