FAMILY TROCHILIDAE 335 



haunts during the pairing season. The species is one that comes 

 regularly when small birds are called. 



A nest with 2 eggs from Almirante, Bocas del Toro, taken March 

 29, 1962, by technicians of the Gorgas Memorial Laboratory, was a 

 cup of felted, whitish plant down that averaged 5 mm. thick, with 

 an outer covering of shreds and thin fibers of weathered brown plant 

 materials, camouflaged by scattered bits of light green moss and 

 gray-green lichen. It measured 50 mm. in diameter by 40 mm. tall, 

 with an inside depth of 20 mm. The 2 white eggs were near hatching 

 so that 1 was broken. The other measured 14.7x9.6 mm., dimen- 

 sions that agree with the average of 14.0x8.8 mm. for 6, given by 

 Skutch (Auk, 1945, p. 16). Two eggs in the British Museum col- 

 lected in Antioquia, Colombia, by T. K. Salmon are dull white, without 

 gloss, and long elliptical in form. They measure 13.3 X 8.9, and 13.3 X 

 9.3 mm. 



On Isla Coiba on January 8, 1956, I found a nest a little more 

 than 2 meters from the ground on the horizontal branch of a small, 

 broad-leafed tree in an open locality back of a beach. It was built 

 of fine shreds of light grayish brown plant fiber, with somewhat 

 coarser materials on the outer surface, decorated with a few bits 

 of lichen. It measured 42 by 44 millimeters externally, being some- 

 what flattened by the 2 well-grown young that it contained. These 

 had two lines of clay-colored down along the dorsal pteryla. The 

 limb on which the nest rested was a passageway for numerous large 

 ants so that the female remained with the young, striking with her 

 bill at those of the insects that passed too near. 



Stone (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, vol. 70, 1918, pp. 255- 

 256) in an account based on notes of L. L. Jewel, mentions a nest 

 found near Gatun, April 30, 1912, that was placed "on the horizontal 

 limb of a shrub five feet from the ground, a dainty cup of light yellow 

 silky vegetable fiber, with a few gray lichens on the outside, all held 

 together by a network of spider's webs." This contained 2 fresh eggs. 

 Another found May 7, 1912, "about fifteen feet from the ground" 

 held 1 egg and a young bird. Heath (Ibis, 1932, p. 483) at Barro 

 Colorado Island recorded a nest placed at the tip of a horizontal 

 branch. The young were reared successfully through heavy storms 

 in spite of the exposed situation. At Changuinola, Bocas del Toro, 

 January 30, 1958, I found a nest recently built a meter from the 

 ground in a small shrub standing isolated on a lawn. 



The nesting season may vary in some areas as I noted adult birds 



