FAMILY RALLIDAE 347 



Females (13 from Mexico and Panama), wing 145.5-170.0 (163.6), 

 tail 47.0-62.5 (57.3), exposed culmen 37.5-46.0 (42.2), tarsus 50.0- 

 60.5 (57.6) mm. 



Resident. Known in Panama from the mangrove swamps near 

 Almirante, Bocas del Toro, and the Rio Pocri, at Puerto Aguadulce, 

 Code. 



Hasso von Wedel collected two females, one adult and one im- 

 mature, on January 14 and 15, 1929, on the Quebrada Nigua, across 

 from Almirante. On January 27, 1958, as I sat at the landing place 

 on the south side of Water Valley, to skin out a heron that threatened 

 to spoil, one of these rails came quietly across the mud of the swamp 

 to watch me. In the hand this proved to be an immature female, still 

 gray underneath, but with head and neck partly changed to the 

 chestnut of the adult. 



In January 1963 I was interested to find this species in the man- 

 groves bordering the Rio Pocri at Puerto Aguadulce and to learn 

 that local hunters were familiar with it as a species distinct from the 

 larger cocaleca. On my first fleeting view of one I noted what 

 seemed unusually dark coloration but attributed this to the dark 

 shadows in which it ran. Male and female were taken at this same 

 point on January 19 and 22 as they came out to the water's edge at 

 low tide. Mannerisms in walking, in jerking the tail, and alert 

 though furtive posture were like those of the companion species. 

 From what I was able to learn the cocaleca cabecicastana is confined 

 to the mangroves and does not wander far from their shelter. Though 

 specimens have been reported from the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa 

 Rica, and from Nuqui in northwestern Choco in Colombia, this is 

 the first report from the Pacific side of the republic. Nothing more 

 is known of the species in Panama. (The records in Ridgway and 

 Friedmann, cited above, for David and Lion Hill refer to Aramides 

 c. cajanea.) 



Belcher and Smooker (Ibis, 1935, p. 283) in Trinidad record the 

 nest as "an open bowl of small twigs, lined with weed-stems, dead 

 leaves, and, finally, with green bamboo leaves. One was at about ten 

 feet from the ground in a small tree, the other on a dead stump over- 

 hanging the river, six feet above the water. The clutch in each case 

 was five." They describe the color and form of the eggs as like those 

 of Aramides c. cajanea. 



Schonwetter (Handb. Ool., pt. 5, 1961, p. 317; pt. 6, 1962, p. 343) 

 gives the size of ten eggs that he has examined as ranging from 

 43-47x31-36.1 mm. 



