430 BIRDS OF THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA PART 3 



Numerous geographic races are recognized, based mainly on color, 

 and to a lesser degree on pattern of markings. While the forms 

 recognized may appear reasonably distinct in the central areas of 

 their ranges, they merge in approach to one another where individual 

 specimens may be of uncertain relationship. Two reasonably distinct 

 races are found in mainland Panama. 



The inclusion by Nelson (Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, vol. 17, 

 1904. p. 49) of "San Miguel Island." Archipielago de las Perlas, in 

 the distribution in Panama under the name Myiarchus nigriceps 

 was through error. The specimens that he had on loan from the 

 Museum of Comparative Zoology were collected by W. W. Brown, 

 Jr., at an Indian village called San Miguel on the northern slope of 

 the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia, not "San Miguel," 

 Isla del Rey, in the Gulf of Panama, which Brown visited later. 



Though widely distributed as a species, and often fairly common 

 over a vast area in tropical America, little is known of nesting in 

 the tropical forms. Belcher (Ibis, 1937, p. 236) in Trinidad, June 15, 

 1932, found a nest placed in a hole in a stump less than 5 meters 

 from the ground. The cavity, padded with "dried weed-stems and 

 moss, and lined with thin black horsehair-like fibres strongly woven 

 together" held three fresh eggs. In these the buff ground color was 

 "almost obliterated with blotches, longitudinal streaks, and tangled 

 lines of dark purplish-brown, paler brown, and lavender-grey, most 

 pronounced at the larger end." They measured 23.5 X 17.5, 23.8 X 18, 

 and 24x18.2 mm. On April 17, 1933, he collected another set of 

 three eggs from the same hole, similar to the first except that one tgg 

 was somewhat paler. These measured 23.5x17.3, 24.0x18.0 and 

 23.0 X 17.5 mm. Birds from this island currently are assigned to the 

 nominate subspecies M . t. tuberculifcr. 



Alexander Skutch (Pac. Coast Avif., no. 34, 1960, p. 398) records 

 three nests from the lowlands of Honduras and Guatemala, two 

 placed in hollows formed by decay in fence posts and the third in a 

 deep hole in the broken top of a leaning tree trunk. The cavities in 

 all held nests of soft vegetable materials, hair and feathers, and in 

 one a fragment of snake skin. Two nests held four eggs, the other, 

 three nestlings. The eggs were "dull white, heavily blotched and 

 speckled with chocolate, especially in a wreath around the thick end. 

 On the rest of the surface the markings tended to take the form of 

 irregular longitudinal streaks, but on one tgg dots rather than streaks 

 were present." Range in size varied from 19.1x14.3 to 20.6 X 

 15.5 mm. In the area concerned these flycatchers currently are 

 called M. t. conncctens. 



