Life History of the Groove-Billed Ani

Abstract

This paper is a report on observations made on the Groove-billed Ani (Crotophaga sulcirostris) in Central America over many years, but chiefly from 1930 to 1940, when I lived in regions where these birds arc more abundant than about my present abode in the Valley of E1 General in Costa Rica. In subsequent years a little additional information was gathered. The species has a wide range from the lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas through Middle America and much of northern South America. Since, as far as I know, no one has ever published a comprehensive study of this common and most interesting bird and available accounts of its breeding habits are only compilations from scattered sources, it will perhaps be of value to students of bird behavior to have all of my observations in a single paper. CHARACTERISTICS AND DAILY L•FE Appearance.-Although the anis have much to recommend them to the attention of the naturalist, it is not by their beauty that they attract him. With the exception of the vultures, they are the least comely birds that I know. Yet they are not absolutely ugly, for being birds, they wear feathers and, as Grey of Fallodon once wrote about another not very comely bird, having feathers they cannot avoid a certain degree of beauty. The anis are lean and lank and loosely put together, and their long tails, which are almost invariably frayed and worn, seem so inadequately attached to their bodies that they are in danger of being brushed off as the birds push through the tall grasses and weeds where they forage. In facial expression they are especially unfortunate. The Groove-billed Ani's black bill is narrow and very high, with the upper mandible strongly arched and furrowed lengthwise by parallel curved ridges and channels. Its black face is largely bare of feathers and prominent lashes shade its dark, beady eyes. Its plumage is everywhere black, but the feathers on its neck present a scaled appearance, while greenish and purplish glints play over its body and wings in the sunshine and redeem the black monotony of the bird. Foice.-In voice the anis are hardly more pleasing than in appearance. Members of the cuckoo family, they are not songbirds and they lack even the stirring calls o[ some of their relatives. The call-note of the Groove-billed Ani is well paraphrased by one of the common names given to it in Guatemala, Pij•y (pronounced pe-h•y) or Pichuy. This disyllable is uttered as the anis perch or fly, usually