FAMILY ACCIPITRIDAE 203 



Measurements. — Males (5 from Mexico, Panama, and Venezuela), 

 wing 269-299 (281.6), tail 137-148 (144.8), culmen from cere 16.8- 

 19.6 (18.1), tarsus 54.4-61.0 (57.9) mm. 



Females (5 from Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama), 

 wing 299-313 (307.6), tail 151-171 (158.2), culmen from cere 19.0- 

 21.0 (20.2), tarsus 57.0-62.7 (59.2) mm. 



Resident, Rare, in the more open lands. 



Little is known of this species in Panama, where the few records 

 for it over a period of nearly one hundred years are widely scattered. 

 In Veraguas, Enrique Arce secured two at Calovevora and another 

 at Calobre (Salvin, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1870, p. 215 ; Salvin and 

 Godman, Biol. Centr.-Amer., vol. 3, 1900, p. 72). W. W. Brown, Jr., 

 en route to Chiriqui, shot one at Sona, July 25, 1901 (Bangs, Proc. 

 New England Zool. Club, vol. 3, 1902, p. 20). In Bocas del Toro, 

 Hasso von Wedel collected a female at Changuinola, November 5, 

 1928 (Peters, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., vol. 71, 1931, p. 311). In the 

 Canal Zone, Hallinan secured one at Gatun, February 11, 1909. 

 Brown shot a male near Panama City, May 4, 1904 (Thayer and 

 Bangs, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool, vol. 46, 1906, p. 214), Wedel one 

 at Perm.e, San Bias (Griscom, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., vol. 72, 1932, 

 p. 314), and another, a female in light phase, at Puerto Obaldia, San 

 Bias, June 16, 1933 (in the museum of the University of Cincinnati). 



I have found this species only in northern Herrera, where Perrygo 

 and I collected one on February 26 near Portobellilo, and another 

 March 8, near Santa Maria, both in 1948. The first was flying along 

 a line of trees bordering a lane in open country. The second was 

 among large trees in gallery forest. In general appearance on the 

 wing these birds were similar to other small hawks of the same genus. 

 They seem however, to be more aggressive, as one taken was killed 

 as it stooped swiftly at a brown robin that had come to feed on berries. 

 Hallinan records that the one he collected had killed two lizards, and 

 that it had fragments of a small bird in its stomach. 



While the range of this species includes the vast area of tropical 

 America from Mexico through Central America and South America 

 to northeastern Argentina, its nesting is known principally from the 

 population isolated in Florida. Here the birds build open nests in 

 trees often high above the ground. Bent (U. S. Nat. Mus. Bull. 

 167, 1937, pp. 256-257) says that the usual set is of two eggs, with 

 a range in number from one to three. These are plain pale bluish 

 white in some, or dull white, spotted or blotched in varying degree 

 with brown. Measurements vary from 48.6-57.5 X 40.3-45.5 mm. 



