292 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL, 150 



bring it to any extensive clearings, and so it may be found in any 

 part of the Republic. In 1952 I saw none in the recently made farms 

 along the Rio Indio in western Colon, from its mouth to the foothills 

 in the Caribbean comer of northern Code. But in the older plantation 

 areas in Bocas del Toro, between Almirante and the Costa Rican 

 border, the bird has been common during the period of northern 

 winter for many years. As it is a species adapted to northern 

 climates its zonal range is broad, particularly on the more open 

 Pacific side of the mountains. In Chiriqui I have found sparrow 

 hawks from the coastal area near San Felix and Las Lajas to near 

 2,000 meters elevation above Cerro Punta; in other words, from 

 the tropical to the temperate zones. Occasionally I have recorded one 

 in park areas in Panama City, Balboa, and Ancon. 



The birds are solitary and select what commanding perches may 

 be available on dead trees, shrubs, or failing such higher points, on 

 boulders, or termite hills, as stations from which to watch for food. 

 Telephone poles along the highways and fence posts in cultivated 

 lands are favored stations. 



Their food is largely the grasshoppers (Acrididae) common in 

 their haunts, varied with small lizards, and an occasional mouse, 

 rarely a bird. Though they stoop frequently at flying swallows or at 

 other small species at rest in open tree tops, and also at larger hawks 

 this is in play. They often hover with rapidly moving wings a few 

 meters above the earth in their watch for food. 



The call, heard rather seldom from these migrants, is a rapidly 

 uttered killy killy killy. 



In March when the annual burnings — the candelas — clear pastures 

 and areas where the trees have been felled for cultivation sparrow 

 hawks become much stained from feeding over the blackened 

 ground. I recall in particular one that I stalked for half an hour in 

 careful approach on the supposition that it was some strange, dark- 

 plumaged species with which I was not familiar. 



While the sparrow hawk is not known to winter farther south 

 than eastern Panama the number that reach this distant section is 

 larger than has been understood, since in March as they start the 

 return northward there is definite increase in the number found on 

 the eastern savannas near Pacora and La Jagua. Once, on March 

 20, 1949, while night-hunting in a jeep in this area I flushed a 

 sparrow hawk from a sleeping place on the ground on the open 

 plain. It is probable that some cross into Colombia in northern 

 Choco, as the birds have been found in some numbers at Perme and 

 Obaldia in the Comarca de San Bias near the boundary. 



