30 BIRDS OF THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA PART 2 



where it was concealed among tall green sprouts. The nest, made of 

 twigs, was flat, and more firmly built than usual, due probably to the 

 solid foundation on which it rested. The 2 slightly incubated eggs, 

 white with a definite gloss, between elliptical and subelliptical in form, 

 measure 22.0 X 16.8 and 22.2X 16.7 mm. Another nest brought to me 

 the following day by a convict, who had found it in the top of a palm 

 while gathering coconuts, held 2 eggs that were too heavily incubated 

 to be preserved. 



These doves were common in pasturelands around the convict 

 camps, in which otherwise the only bird inhabitants were a few tropi- 

 cal kingbirds. Aside from this habitat the doves, in small numbers 

 only, were restricted to the borders of the coastal swamps and open 

 thickets immediately behind the shoreline. Since the pastures had been 

 cleared mainly after the penal colony was established in 1919, it seems 

 evident that the ruddy ground-dove has increased in number through 

 this extension of the area favorable to it. 



In the Archipielago de las Perlas, in 1944, on Isla San Jose, a few 

 ruddy ground-doves were encountered in fairly open grassy areas near 

 a headland at East Harbor, and in the small open savanna at Bald Hill 

 in the north end of the island. On Pedro Gonzalez they ranged around 

 small fields. On Chapera and Cafias, I saw them about little water 

 holes in open forest, and in the uninhabited sections that I visited on 

 Isla del Rey a few lived at the back edge of the mangrove swamps, 

 and near beaches where there were small expanses grown with grass. 



It is interesting to note that I did not see this species on Isla Taboga 

 during my various visits to that island. 



COLUMBINA MINUTA ELAEODES (Todd): Plain-breasted 

 Ground-Dove; Tortolita Sabanera 



Chaemepelia minuta elaeodcs Todd, Ann. Carnegie Mus., vol. 8, May 8, 1913, 

 p. 578. (Buenos Aires, Costa Rica.) 



Smallest of the Panamanian doves ; female grayer than the ruddy 

 ground-dove. 



Description. — Length 140 to 155 mm. Male, forecrown bluish gray, 

 paler on the forehead; rest of upper surface dark grayish brown, 

 grayer on the hindneck ; central tail feathers like back, others gray 

 with a distal black band and grayish white tip ; wing coverts usually 

 paler, and somewhat vinaceous; lesser wing coverts, tertials and 

 inner secondaries with a few scattered spots of steel blue ; throat vina- 

 ceous-white ; sides of head and rest of under surface vinaceous-drab, 

 paler on the abdomen ; under tail coverts brown, tipped with grayish 



