FAMILY PSITTACIDAE 85 



Resident. Found in Darien, in the lower valley of the Rio Tuira. 

 Recorded to date only from El Real, at the former village site of 

 Tapalisa on the lower Rio Pucro, and near Pucro. 



W. B. Richardson collected 5 of these tiny parrots at El Real on 

 December 31, 1914, and January 21, 1915, and another at Tapalisa on 

 March 17, 1915. 



While at Pucro village in late January and early February 1964, I 

 made enquiry for these birds among the Cuna, but without result until 

 on February 8 I collected a pair. Then the Indian boys recognized 

 them under the Spanish name given above, and said that they ranged 

 in little flocks. I found the 2 taken in low trees bordering an old 

 ricefield. The female was laying. Near El Real I secured another 

 pair on February 16 at the border of a field near the Rio Pirre. These 

 had the crop filled with soft grass seeds. 



Four eggs of this tiny parrot from northwestern Colombia listed by 

 Schonwetter (Handb. Ool., pt. 9, 1964, p. 519) measure 17.6-18.5 X 

 15.4-16.4 mm. 



The males from Darien are very slightly more yellowish green on 

 the lower surface, and less definitely dark green above than the average 

 in a series from northern Colombia, but are equaled in these differences 

 by some from elsewhere in the South American area. Females are 

 more faintly yellowish below. Griscom (Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., 1935, 

 p. 314) noted this difference in the birds taken by Richardson, as he 

 wrote "perhaps subspecifically separable." From the available speci- 

 mens the distinction between the two groups seems too slight to merit 



[FORPUS PASSERINUS SPENGELI (Hartlaub) 



Psittacula spengeli Hartlaub, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, October 1, 1885, p. 614, 

 pi. 38, fig. 1. (Barranquilla, Atlantico, Colombia.) 



The original label of a specimen in the British Museum (Natural 

 History) received in the Tweeddale collection reads "Psittacula 

 Panama (McLeannan)" with no other data. Salvadori (Cat. Birds. 

 Brit. Mus., vol. 20, 1891, p. 250) listed it as "Panama( ?) (McLean- 

 nan)." I examined this bird in July 1957 to find that it was properly 

 identified, but that there was no further indication of locality or other 

 data. The race is one of restricted range in the lower valley of the 

 Rio Magdalena and the nearby Caribbean coastal area in northern 

 Colombia. There is no basis, from this one specimen of uncertain 

 source, for its inclusion in the list of the birds of Panama.] 



