12 BIRDS OF THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA PART 2 



resting on tall stubs that project above the leaves or stand alone at the 

 forest edge. The call, deep in tone, may be rendered as whoo, whoo 

 whoo, whoo, the first and last syllables uttered slowly, the two between 

 rather quickly. At times the note is deeper, when it changes to groo-oo 

 coo, groo-groo. This is varied by utterances of the guttural roll com- 

 mon to male birds of this genus. They often call from the tree tops on 

 high ridges where they rest in the sun. 



Scaled pigeons feed on the drupes of trees and shrubs, which when 

 ripened in quantity may cause the birds to congregate. It is then that 



Figure 2. — Scaled pigeon, paloma escamosa, Columba speciosa. 



they figure as game and many are killed. American hunters usually 

 call them "speckle-necks" or "dominicks" from their spotted plumage, 

 the latter name suggested by the resemblance of these markings to 

 those of the Dominique fowl. 



At Mandinga, San Bias, numbers slept in the swampy woodlands 

 near the bay, and in early morning flew inland in small bands. 



At El General, in southwestern Costa Rica, Skutch (Wilson Bull., 

 1964, pp. 212-213) described the nests as flimsy platforms of sticks 

 and dry plant materials, placed in second-growth thickets from 2 to 5 

 meters above the ground, with 1 at about 60 centimeters, and 2 ele- 

 vated from 15 to 18 meters. Those that were accessible held either 1 

 egg or a single nestling. Belcher and Smooker (Ibis, 1936, p. 1) de- 

 scribed 2 nests in Trinidad with 2 eggs each. These were "slightly 



