FAMILY COLUMBIDAE 19 



iris orange ; bare skin around eye and on lores bright blue ; bill black ; 

 tarsus and toes light to dark red ; claws dull brown to dull black. 



Measurements. — Males (8 from Herrera and Code), wing 151-160 

 (156), tail 99.8-112 (103.6), culmen 19.2-20.4 (19.6), tarsus 24.5- 

 27.5 (26.1) mm. 



Females (2 from Code), wing 148, 152; tail 94.2, 101.4; culmen 

 19.5, 19.9 ; tarsus 25.5, 26.2 mm. 



Resident. Fairly common in the mangrove swamps around the 

 shores of Golfo de Parita, from the lower Rio Parita (Monagrillo), 

 Herrera, to the Rio Pocri and the Rio Anton, Code. 



The white-winged dove was reported first for Panama by Griscom 

 (Amer. Mus. Nov., no. 280, 1927, p. 1) from 2 specimens collected 

 by R. R. Benson near Aguadulce, on September 25 and 26, 1925. The 

 next record was on February 25, 1948, when W. M. Perrygo and I 

 found several near the lower course of the Rio Parita, below Mona- 

 grillo, and secured a male. Others were seen March 11, in the man- 

 groves at Alvina, near the mouth of the Rio Santa Maria below Paris, 

 but it did not occur to me that this was a usual haunt in Panama. The 

 species is one which I had known in other regions, and at one time I 

 made a considerable study of it in the semidesert country in south- 

 western Arizona. With this background of information, I made ex- 

 tended search for white-winged doves in areas in Code and Veraguas 

 similar to those where I had known the bird in the north, but with no 

 success. Finally, at the close of the 1962 field season, chance took me 

 early one morning to Puerto Aguadulce, and here these doves were 

 calling steadily from the mangroves bordering the Rio Pocri. In the 

 single day available I located a number, and secured 1 specimen. The 

 following season in January 1963, I returned for 10 days to make 

 detailed studies, and secured additional birds for skins. 



The local population of this species in Panama, as stated in the 

 outline of range, lives in the extensive mangrove swamps on the lower 

 courses of the rivers that drain into the Golfo de Parita, where to 

 date I have found them from the Rio Parita at Monagrillo, north 

 along the gulf to the mouth of the Rio Anton. The largest concentra- 

 tion is along the Rio Pocri from Puerto Aguadulce downstream to- 

 ward the sea. They fly out from these haunts to feed in open lands 

 adjacent, particularly around fields of corn, beans, and rice, when the 

 crop has been harvested, and then return to the mangroves, a habitat 

 completely different from the mesquite thickets and open woodlands 

 that are the haunts of the species elsewhere. 



Below Puerto Aguadulce a dozen may be heard calling in a distance 



