20 BIRDS OF THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA PART 3 



two small caterpillars, and bits of beetles, including weevils, 

 curculionids, a cerambycid, elaterids, and a small scarabaeid. 



GLYPHORYNCHUS SPIRURUS (Vieillot) : Wedge-billed 

 Woodcreeper, Trepador Pico de Cuna 



Neops spirurns Vieillot, Nouv. Diet. Hist Nat., nouv. ed., vol. 31, September 

 1819, p. 338. (Cayenne.) 



A small woodcreeper, with head and under surface reddish brown ; 

 distinguished in life from Sittasoujus by the darker brown crown 

 and the spotted f oreneck and upper breast. 



Description. — Length 140-150 mm. Adult (sexes alike), above 

 reddish brown, darker on the crown ; rump, upper tail coverts, wings, 

 and tail cinnamon-rufous ; primary coverts tipped narrowly with 

 dusky ; superciliary streak buffy white ; cheeks sooty brown, spotted 

 and streaked more or less with dull white ; chin and throat buff to 

 cinnamon-buff, spotted lightly with dusky ; under surface olive- 

 brown, slightly reddish on under tail coverts ; f oreneck and upper 

 breast streaked more or less heavily with dull white to buffy white, 

 lines of this color in some continued over the lower breast ; under 

 wing coverts white, changing to reddish brown on the edge of the 

 wing. 



The wedge-bill, while widely distributed through the Republic, 

 often is absent in forested areas that seem suited to it. They may 

 be overlooked in casual observation, as they climb quietly in spirals 

 or directly upward over tree trunks and large branches. In this climb- 

 ing movement they have many of the mannerisms of the brown 

 creepers (Certhia familiaris) of the North. Like that species, in 

 undulating flight from tree to tree where the forest growth is open, 

 they often dip down near the ground, and so are among the birds 

 caught regularly when mist nets are set. Only rarely have I heard 

 them give low calls. 



The bill is strong and pointed, used regularly like that of a wood- 

 pecker, so that it is one of the species of the family that merited 

 the older common name of woodhewer. The nest of this species is 

 said to be in natural cavities. Russell (A.O.U. Orn. Mon., no. 1, 1964, 

 p. 103) quotes field notes of Morton Peck in British Honduras who 

 found one "in a shallow cavity in the base of a dead palm leaf. . . . 

 Two eggs were in the nest which was about 8 feet above the ground." 

 Eisenmann (Smiths. Misc. Coll., vol. 117, no. 5, 1952, p. 33) records 

 a nest with two grown young found July 12, 1949, on Barro Colorado 

 Island in a natural cavitv. 



