I38 BIRDS OF THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA PART 2 



Mina, Lion Hill), eastern Province of Panama (Chepo), and western 

 San Bias (Mandinga). 



From the little known of this cuckoo, it is generally similar in habits 

 to the striped cuckoo, but ranges in thickets and low, open forest 

 without coming out into more open areas. It was reported from 

 Panama by George N. Lawrence from the first collection sent by 

 James McLeannan, made on the Atlantic slope of the Isthmus. Early 

 specimens collected by Hughes at Paraiso Station on the railroad went 

 to Salvin. The bird was found next by W. W. Brown, Jr., on April 

 15, 1901, near Boquete. The label of this specimen, in the Museum of 

 Comparative Zoology, bears the notation that it was taken at "7,000 

 feet" (about 2,130 meters) which may be open to question as too great 

 an elevation. One was collected by Van Tyne on Barro Colorado 

 Island, Canal Zone, on March 13, 1926. 



In my own field studies I saw the pheasant cuckoo first near Chepo, 

 on April 15, 1949, when we encountered a pair ranging a meter or two 

 from the ground in tall forest with considerable undergrowth and 

 many creepers, growing over rolling terrain. Attention was attracted 

 to the birds by their calls, a whistle, followed by a trilling note, so 

 ventriloquial that we could not determine whether the sound came 

 from high in the trees or near the ground. Presently one of these 

 cuckoos, the male, flew to a branch 1^ meters from the ground where 

 it rested quietly with the heavily feathered tail hanging straight down. 

 At the discharge of the gun the female flew rather rapidly to another 

 low perch where we soon secured it. Two days later we observed 

 another in similar forest not far from the Rio Bayano. I had oppor- 

 tunity on this occasion to hear the note more clearly. The first two 

 whistled sounds had a slight suggestion of the double note of the 

 striped cuckoo, while the trill at the end resembled the tremulous calls 

 of the great tinamou (Tinamns major). This bird rested 20 meters 

 from the ground in the top of a tall tree. On April 18, when I 

 recorded them calling at three separate localities, we stalked them 

 without success. We had similar lack of fortune with others until 

 Ratibor Hartmann, my companion, whistled an imitation of the call, 

 when the bird flew directly to him, passed overhead, and then returned 

 to a perch where it was taken. Evidently this individual had established 

 a territory. It was 6 years before I encountered the bird again, when 

 on January 19, 1955, I found one calling low down in second growth 

 forest at Juan Mina, Canal Zone. I secured another at Mandinga, 

 San Bias, December 16, 1957 — one that flew silently ahead of me 

 through the undergrowth in forest. Armaguedon Hartmann sent me 



