FAMILY TROCHILIDAE 



267 



muzzle of my gun have attracted them so that they have come close 

 many times to examine them. When satisfied or alarmed they dart 

 swiftly away and disappear. At rest, particularly when singing, the 

 tail is vibrated rapidly up and down in a wide arc with the white tip 

 prominent against the duller color pattern of the rest of the bird. 



Nesting seems to begin in May in Panama. Then males rest on low 

 perches, and sing a long series of rather monotonous chirping calls, 

 that often suggest the alarm notes of small finches. At times a number 

 of males, all singing, gather to rest separately but fairly near one 

 another, concealed in the undergrowth. Rowley (Proc. West. Found. 



Figure 39. — Long-tailed hermit, ermitano rabudo, Phacthornis superciliosus. 



Vert. Zool., vol. 1, no. 3, 1966, p. 134, fig. 16) gives measurements of 2 

 eggs of the race mexicamis from western Oaxaca, a larger form than 

 those of Panama, as 16.1x9.0 and 15.1x9.8 mm. 



A male of the race cassinii that I shot February 15, 1959, at Boca de 

 Paya had the throat crammed with insects, among them small beetles, 

 of a size that astonished me as one broken body, probably of a chryso- 

 melid, measured 6 mm. A whole one of the same family, was 4 mm. 

 long. The stomach of a specimen from Cana contained 11 small 

 spiders. Another from Portobelo held 8 small spiders and a ball of 

 eggs probably of the same group. 



Two geographic races that differ in size, especially in length of tail, 

 and very slightly in depth of color are recognized in the Republic. 

 Hummingbirds of this general form are widely distributed from 

 southern Mexico to eastern Bolivia and Brazil, with much variation in 



