FAMILY COLUMBIDAE 9 



amid leaves. In walking quietly through low forest on many occasions 

 I have had them flush overhead with loudly clapping wings. In high 

 forest, as on Isla Coiba, and in Darien, they may rest in the tops of 

 the tallest trees. Hunters find them wary, to be obtained by careful 

 stalking, or from concealment below dead trees to which they come to 

 rest in afternoon. 



During the nesting season, in the first half of the year, their hooting 

 notes woo-oo-oo zvoo-tit-woo woo-tit-woo, in sound like the calls of 

 some owls, are heard regularly from a distance. Males in display soar 

 above the trees or across small openings with stiffly spread wings, 

 sometimes extended straight and flat, and sometimes elevated at an 

 angle above the back. Again, they fly out in a wide circle, stroking the 

 wings well above the back, finally holding them stiffly while they sail. 

 Nests are small, shallow, frail platforms of twigs that hold a single egg. 

 Usually they are placed in tangles of vines a few meters from the 

 ground. On February 19, 1944, I found a nest on Isla San Jose in 

 the top of a spiny-trunked black palm. The single white egg was 

 broken accidentally. E. A. Goldman collected an egg on Isla Buena- 

 ventura, off Portobelo, Colon, on May 30, 1911, from a nest that was 

 a flimsy platform of slender twigs 6 meters from the ground in a mass 

 of vines. This egg, white with little gloss, subelliptical in form, mea- 

 sures 37.4x26.1 mm. Another egg, obtained by Dr. Pedro Galindo at 

 Almirante, Bocas del Toro, June 2, 1962, is long subelliptical, and 

 measures 37.6x25.6 mm. 



One of these pigeons taken by Goldman had the stomach filled with 

 seeds of a Solatium, with a few of a Miconia. The harder seeds may 

 have been taken as a grinding agent in lieu of gravel. 



The race of this pigeon found in Panama ranges from southeastern 

 Mexico, through Central America, to northern Colombia and northern 

 Venezuela. 



COLUMBA FASCIATA CRISSALIS Salvadori: Band-tailed Pigeon; 

 Torcaza Collareja 



Columba crissalis Salvadori, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., vol. 21, 1893, pp. 245 (in key), 

 294. (Boquete de Chitra = Chitra, Veraguas.) 



A large pigeon with a prominent white band across the hindneck. 



Description. — Length 325-360 mm. Adult male, crown purple-drab, 

 side of head grayer; a prominent band of white across the upper 

 hindneck ; lower hindneck metallic bronze ; upper back and scapulars 

 fuscous ; lower back and rump, upper tail coverts, and basal half of 

 tail slightly browner gray ; a blackish band across center of tail, with 



