144 BIRDS OF THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA PART 3 



mentioned. Males often rested on open perches where their black 

 coloration was conspicuous, though females were more secretive. 

 They were local in distribution and so were not frequently seen. 



On February 8, 1962, above Canita on the lower Rio Bayano 

 beyond El Llano, I collected one in undergrowth in forest at the 

 mouth of a small quebrada near a gravel playon called Canchigua. 

 This was especially interesting as indication that the species ranges 

 also in the valley of that great river. At the point in question the 

 Barred Ant-shrike was also present, and within 300 meters the Slaty 

 Ant-shrike lived, but within the forest. 



I have seen no account of its nesting. 



Sclater in his original description named this species from a single 

 specimen "obtained out of a collection of Bogota skins" so that the 

 type locality has been listed as "Bogota." Hellmayr (in Cory and 

 Hellmayr, Cat. Birds Amer.. pt. 3, 1924, p. 76) remarked that the 

 type, now in the British Museum, was not a Bogota skin, "being more 

 like the skins sent from n. Colombia (Baranquilla)." Sclater's 

 description and plate (Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., vol. 15, 1890, p. 194, 

 pi. 12) indicate that the type probably was an immature male. Todd 

 (Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, 1927, p. 152) in the description of a 

 race magdalenae from the upper Magdalena Valley in Colombia 

 records that Hellmayr, in further comparison of the type with a 

 series from the Carnegie Museum, found it like one from the lower 

 Atrato. Thus Thamnophilus virgatus Lawrence (Proc. Acad. Nat. 

 Sci. Philadelphia, vol. 22, April 27, 1869, p. 361) named from Turbo 

 is a synonym. 



THAMNOPHILUS PUNCTATUS ATRINUCHA Salvin and Godman: 

 Slaty Ant-shrike, Pavita Hormiguera Ceniza 



Thamnophilus atrinucha Salvin and Godman, Biol. Centr.-Amer., Aves, vol. 2, 

 February 1892, p. 200. (Panama.) 



With the heavy head and body, short tail, and large bill of other 

 species of this genus ; distinguished by plain breast, gray in the male, 

 and dull bufify brown in the female. 



Description. — Length 140-150 mm. Adult male, crown and hind 

 neck black, with forehead partly or wholly gray ; side of head gray, 

 with ear coverts streaked narrowly with white ; center of back with 

 concealed base of feathers white, tipped broadly with black ; upper tail 

 coverts black, tipped with white; rest of upper surface gray; wings 

 black, with wing coverts tipped, and tertials and secondaries edged, 

 with white ; primaries edged narrowly with gray ; tail black with a 



