128 BIRDS OF THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA PART 3 



varied to vinaceous drab, partly in very fine, short hairlines, but 

 mainly in an indefinite wreath around the cap of the upper end, the 

 lower more pointed end being mainly clear. They measure 24.7 X 17.6 

 and 23.6 X 18.1 mm. A single egg taken fully formed from the oviduct 

 of a female, collected March 24, 1948, on the Hacienda Belen in 

 eastern Antioquia, is marked with vinaceous-drab, mainly in a distinct 

 wreath around the cap, with dots and hairlines elsewhere, and 

 scattered spots of blackish brown. This egg measures 24.2 X 17.8 mm. 



Skutch (Publ. Nuttall Orn. Club no. 10, 1972, p. 132) reported that 

 male and female shared incubation during the day, with the female 

 alone at night. 



In the field occasionally I saw these birds eating caterpillars. The 

 stomach of a male collected by Goldman on Cerro Pirre was filled 

 with fragments of several species of beetles, nymphs, and adult 

 pentatomids, a few bits of a locustid, and ants. 



The race fasciafus is found from Honduras south through Central 

 America and western Colombia. 



TARABA MAJOR MELANOCRISSUS (Sclater) : Great Ant-shrike, 

 Hormiguero Grande 



Figure 12 



Thamnophilus melanocrissus P. L. Sclater, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, pt. 28, 

 August 1860, p. 252. (Choctum, Alta Verapaz, Guatemala.) 



Medium size ; male, black above ; female, warm brown above ; both 

 white below. 



Description. — Length 175-200 mm. Adult male, upper surface, 

 including side of head, wings, and tail, black ; feathers of center of 

 back with concealed bases broadly white; wing coverts tipped with 

 white ; alula edged with white ; under surface clear white ; flanks 

 gray ; under tail coverts black, in some plain, in others narrowly tipped 

 with white, occasionally the white tipping extensive ; under wing 

 coverts, edge of wing, and inner margins of flight feathers white. 



Adult female, upper surface brown, darker on head, chestnut on 

 back, paling to cinnamon-brown on the upper tail coverts ; lores, 

 space below eye, and orbital region more or less dusky ; under sur- 

 face white, in some tinged with buff ; lower sides changing to grayish, 

 and on the flanks to buffy brown or cinnamon ; under tail coverts 

 cinnamon ; axillars, under wing coverts, and inner margins of flight 

 feathers white. 



