Incubation and Nesting Periods of Central American Birds

of the incubation and nestling periods of birds are of both practical and theoretical importance. The incubation periods of numerous kinds of North Temperate birds have been published both in special lists, as those of Burns (1915) and Bergtold (1917), and in life-histories of particular species. The nestling periods have, on the whole, received less attention. For tropical birds, very few periods have been published--indeed, tropical ornithology, in every respect save pure systematics, is a branch of the science still in its infancy. An outstanding exception is the list of incubation and fledgling periods of African birds published by Moreau and Moreau (1940), which breaks ground in this field. No comparable information for Neotropical birds has, to my knowledge, ever been presented. As to Central American birds in particular, I doubt whether a score of incubation periods have been given in print, and those chiefly in my life-history studies that have from time to time appeared in 'the Auk.'