6 BIRDS OF THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA — PART 2 



COLUMBA LEUCOCEPHALA Linnaeus: White-crowned Pigeon; 

 Paloma Cabeciblanca 



Figure 1 



Columba leucocephala Linnaeus, Syst. Nat., ed. 10, vol. 1, 1758, p. 164. (Bahama 

 Islands.) 



A dark-colored pigeon, with pure white crown. 



Description. — Length 330-350 mm. Male, crown white ; nape dark 

 maroon; hindneck bronze-green, with the feathers margined with 

 black ; rest of upper surface slate color, with primaries blacker ; neck, 

 upper breast, and under wing coverts slate color, changing to slate-gray 

 on the rest of the under surface. 



Female, similar to male, but somewhat lighter and duller in color ; 

 crown usually brownish gray. 



Iris white or creamy white ; bare space around eye white with a mix- 

 ture of pink; base of bill dull red; tip greenish white to brownish 

 white; tarsus and toes crimson; claws brown (Lowe, Ibis, 1909, 

 pp. 332-333). 



Measurements. — Males (10 from Panama, Cuba, and Haiti), wing 

 189-200 (194.3), tail 115.3-123.4 (120.4), culmen 15-20 (16.9), tar- 

 sus 23.5-28.0 (25.8) mm. 



Females (10 from Panama, Swan Island, Cuba, Jamaica, and 

 Haiti), wing 183-203 (189.6), tail 114.4-124.6 (118.7), culmen 15.8- 

 18.8 (17.3), tarsus 25.1-29.6 (26.6) mm. 



Fairly common locally on the coast of northwestern Bocas del Toro ; 

 Isla Escudo de Veraguas ; Big Zapatilla Cay ; Swan Cay. 



These handsome pigeons are regular in occurrence on the outer 

 shores of the Laguna de Chiriqui, mainly in mangroves and in the 

 forest growth on higher ground immediately behind the swamps. 

 Griscom (Amer. Mus. Nov., no. 293, 1928, pp. 1-2) published the 

 first record of this species for Panama from a bird taken by R. R. 

 Benson in Bocas del Toro. F. H. Kennard collected a male near 

 Almirante, February 25, 1926 (Kennard and Peters, Proc. Boston 

 Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. 38, 1928, p. 447). A male in the University of 

 California at Los Angeles was taken on Isla Escudo de Veraguas by 

 Frank Richardson, March 3, 1936. I saw 2 on this island on March 1, 

 1958, and C. O. Handley, Jr., also recorded several during his work 

 there in March 1962. I collected a male in the mangroves at the mouth 

 of Banana River on February 6, 1958. Handley and Greenwell shot 

 a female on Big Zapatilla Cay on the outer boundary of the Laguna 

 de Chiriqui on February 6, 1963. 



In 1958 fishermen who lived at Boca del Drago told me that they 



