348 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I50 



PORZANA FLAVIVENTER FLAVIVENTER (Boddaert): Yellow-breasted 

 Rail; Cocalequita Enana 



Figure 57 



Rallus flaviventer Boddaert, Table Planch, Enl., 1783, p. 52. (Cayenne.) 



Smallest of the rails in Panama ; crown dull black, with a white line 

 over the eye. 



Description. — Length 120 to 130 mm. Adult (sexes alike), top of 

 head and nape, and a streak through eye dull black ; line from base 

 of bill over eye white ; side of head pale gray or pale buff ; feathers 

 of back, scapulars, and tail black or brownish black centrally, with 

 wide borders of buff to dark cinnamon-buff, and narrow shaft lines 

 of white; lesser wing coverts brown, with faint tips of white; a 

 streak of black, with the feathers tipped with white, on the central, 

 middle, and greater coverts ; wings in some barred heavily with black 

 and white ; throat, upper f oreneck, upper breast, and abdomen white, 

 with a strong wash of buff to cinnamon buff on lower f oreneck, 

 upper breast, and adjacent sides; sides of lower breast, abdomen, 

 flanks, and under tail coverts barred heavily with black and white. 



Immature, with indefinite bars of dark neutral gray on neck and 

 breast, faint in the center, more evident at the sides. 



Downy young not known. 



Iris reddish brown; most of maxilla and tip of mandible dark 

 neutral gray; sides of maxilla at base, below the nostril, and the 

 mandibular rami dull greenish olive ; tarsus and toes honey yellow ; 

 crus and posterior face of tibiotarsal joint mouse brown ; claws mouse 

 brown. 



Measurements. — Males (7 from Panama), wing 64.2-69.8 (66.5), 

 culmen from base 16.1-18.5 (17.3), tarsus 22.0-24.2 (23.5) mm. 



Females (3 from Panama), wing 64.3-67.3 (66.0), culmen from 

 base 15.9-17.7 (16.8), tarsus 23.0-25.6 (24.2) mm. 



Resident. Found locally in fresh marshes; fairly common near 

 Juan Mina on the Rio Chagres ; recorded also at Playa Jobo, below 

 Las Lajas, Chiriqui ; sight record near Changuinola, Bocas del Toro. 



On the early morning of January 8, 1955, as I watched the marsh 

 at the border of the Rio Chagres, a short distance below Juan Mina, 

 two of these little rails came walking out at the edge of the floating 

 water plants. The one that I secured on this occasion was the first 

 record for the Isthmus. The following year in eastern Chiriqui on 

 February 24, as I waded through an extensive fresh-water cienaga 

 back of the coastal sand dunes at Playa Jobo, below Las Lajas, one 

 flushed from low grass growing in the water, and I killed it on the 



