FAMILY CAPRIMULGIDAE 207 



Recorded (from specimens) in Chiriqui (Frances), Panama (Cerro 

 Campana, Panama City, Chepo), Canal Zone (Balboa, Corozal). 



The presence of common nighthawks in the Republic during May, 

 June, and July was first recorded by Eugene Eisenmann (Wilson 

 Bull., 1951, p. 184), who saw them and heard them calling regularly in 

 1948, 1949, and 1950. Following other observations in later years, in 

 company with J. E. Ambrose, Dr. Eisenmann collected a female with 

 a recently hatched young bird, on an open, rocky hillside at 750 meters 

 elevation on Cerro Campana, in the western sector of the Province of 

 Panama. With this proven breeding bird as basis for comparison with 

 other material, several additional specimens were obviously similar, 

 so that it was possible to distinguish the resident population from the 

 northern migrants that pass through the Isthmus. 



Eisenmann, with others, has recorded males booming frequently 

 during the month of April in the Juan Franco suburb of Panama 

 City, around the Paitilla and Tocumen airports, and in late June 

 over Cerro Azul. On March 24 and 29, and April 1. 1949, I heard one 

 or two performing at dusk at the La Jagua Hunting Club. Later, on 

 April 21, W. M. Perrygo and I collected a female as it flew over a 

 savanna area near the highway, about 8 kilometers west of Chepo. In 

 older records I have found a female of this race in the Salvin-Godman 

 collection at the British Museum, collected by McLeannan, marked 

 "Panama" without other data, but presumed to have come from the 

 line of the Panama Railroad. There are 2 females in the Rothschild 

 collection at the American Museum of Natural History, taken 

 October 24 and November 4, 1905, by H. J. W r atson at Frances, 

 Chiriqui, on the southern base of the volcano. Two females collected 

 by Hallinan (Auk, 1924, p. 315) in the Canal Zone in 1916, near 

 Balboa, May 13, and Corozal May 21, now in the American Museum 

 of Natural History, also are this resident race. There is a female 

 listed by Eisenmann in the Dickey Collection from Hacienda El 

 Pelon, Guanacaste, Costa Rica. 



Olson and Eisenmann (Auk, 1966, pp. 469-470) describe a set of 

 2 eggs, partly incubated, found by Olson May 12, 1963, "on a hill on 

 the outskirts of Panama City, 4 miles east of Albrook Field" as creamy 

 white to pale buff, densely and finely marked with ochraceous-brown 

 and gray. They measured 30.5x22.0 and 29.2x21.6 mm. 



As Dr. Eisenmann has suggested, this race is not resident, but may 

 be migratory, after nesting, to South America. 



