228 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I50 



Measurements (from Friedniann, U.S. Nat. Mus. Bull. 50, pt. 10, 

 1950, p. 412).— Males (8 specimens), wing 358-383 (378.1), tail 

 157-182 (171.9), culmen from cere 26-30 (27.9), tarsus 72-84 (80.1) 

 mm. 



Females (7 specimens), wing 380-405 (392.3), tail 175-183 

 (180.4), culmen from cere 28-30.5 (29.3), tarsus 78-89 (85.3) mm. 



Resident. Local, in small numbers, in the tropical lowlands on the 

 Pacific slope, from Veraguas to Darien, including northern Herrera. 

 The only record for the Caribbean side is of a male taken at Lion Hill, 

 Canal Zone, by W. W. Brown, Jr., in March, 1900 (Bangs, Proc. 

 New England Zool. Club, vol. 2, 1900, p. 15). 



This handsome bird is found around lowland marshes, in small 

 openings in swampy woodlands, and along the larger rivers. Though 

 it ranges widely from southern Mexico through Central America to 

 eastern Bolivia and Brazil, there have been only a few records of it in 

 Panama. Salvin received one from Arce, taken in Veraguas, without 

 definite locality (Salvin and Godman, Biol. Centr.-Amer., vol. 3, 1900, 

 p. 86) . On March 10, 1948, 1 saw one at the Cienaga de Buho beyond 

 Santa Maria, Herrera, where the bird rested in the sun on an open 

 stub standing at the border of the marsh. On April 1, 1949, we shot 

 a male at the nearly dry Cienaga Campana east of Pacora and saw 

 another in this same area on April 4. The only locality at which I 

 have seen them in any number is along the Rio La Jagua. 



In Darien, Festa collected one at Laguna de Pita in August 1895 

 (Salvadori and Festa, Boll. Mus. Zool. Anat. Comp. Torino, vol. 

 14, 1899, p. 10). The National Museum has a female taken by J. L. 

 Baer on the Rio Chucunaque near Yavisa on March 20, 1924. Far- 

 ther up this same river I saw one on March 27, 1959, near the mouth 

 of the Rio Tuquesa. The bird rested in an open tree over a pool in 

 swampy woodland. 



The tarsus in this species is rather short, while the toes are excep- 

 tionally long, with long, strongly curved, sharp-pointed claws. The 

 pads on the underside of the toes are armed with conical, sharply 

 pointed papillae, and the tip of the maxilla is long, strongly curved, 

 and sharply pointed. The main food appears to be fish, so that it is 

 intriguing to find that in the strong, curved claws and spiculate toe 

 pads this hawk is the counterpart of the fish-feeding osprey, though 

 the hindtoe does not have the peculiar development found in that 

 species. In other characters than those mentioned the bird is similar 

 to related species of its subfamily, the Buteoninae. The plumage, 

 especially, is like that of other hawks, with none of the waterproof 



