526 BIRDS OF THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA PART 3 



tail 36.5^0.3 (38.7), culmen from base 12.2-13.4 (12.6), tarsus 

 14.2-15.9 (15.1) mm. 



Females (10 from Costa Rica, Honduras, Tabasco, and Veracruz), 

 wing 42.1-46.0 (44.2), tail 30.3-35.6 (32.0), culmen from base 

 11.4-12.8 (12.0), tarsus 14.0-14.9 (14.4) mm. 



Resident. Not common. Recorded locally in Chiriqui and Bocas 

 del Toro. 



The earliest record, in Chiriqui, is a male in the British Museum 

 (Nautral History) taken at Bugaba by Arce in 1869. A female in 

 the California Academy of Sciences from San Felix was collected 

 by Mrs. M. E. McClellan Davidson, December 7, 1931. From Bocas 

 del Toro there is a female in the Peabody Museum from Chiriqui 

 Grande (labeled "Chiriquicito Grande") collected by Austin Smith, 

 May 5, 1927. Benson secured it at Almirante, March 5, 1958. I took 

 a male in that area on the upper Quebrada Nigua, where my attention 

 was attracted to it by its toadlike call. Others have been captured 

 more recently in mist nets. 



The species is one that ranges from Mexico through Central 

 America to western Panama. It is found in thickets and undergrowth 

 in open forest, where its presence may be known from its low calls. 

 Usually these birds are shy, and are seen only on careful search in 

 the undergrowth in which they live. 



Skutch (Pac. Coast Avif. 34, 1960, pp. 555-558) found the female 

 occupied alone in nest building and care of the young. Two nests 

 seen in Costa Rica were rounded, somewhat elongated structures, 

 suspended from a leaf or twig a few centimeters above the ground 

 at the borders of thickets. They were made of light-colored fibers, 

 with an inner chamber "entered through a narrow, round aperture 

 in the side." One contained two nestlings. Alvarez del Toro, 

 (Ateneo, no. 4, 1952, p. 15) in Mexico recorded the eggs as white, 

 and two in number. The observations of Skutch indicated that the 

 curious notes mentioned were given only by males, that appeared 

 to be resident in definitely limited areas in the thickets that they 

 inhabited. He noted also that the food was "largely if not wholly 

 of insects and spiders, which it usually plucks from the under surface 

 of leaves." He believed that the relatively heavy, curved bill, differ- 

 ing from the flat, straight form of most flycatchers, was an adapta- 

 tion to the capture of its food from such locations. In the National 

 Museum collection there is an ancient specimen of cinereigidare 

 labeled "Expl. on Isthmus of Panama S. & T. Rhoades, Lion Hill, 

 near Aspinwall, J. McLeannan" that is the basis of error in records 



