402 BIRDS OF THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA — PART 2 



1896, p. 495) listed the distribution in Panama as "Veraguas (Arce), 

 Lion Hill (McLeannan)" with the statement that the "range is now 

 found to be a little more extended as Arce sent us an adult male from 

 Veraguas." I have seen this specimen, now in the British Museum, 

 and find that the label reads only "Veragua, Arce, 1875." The locality 

 seems too uncertain for acceptance, as it is possible that the specimen 

 came from McLeannan at Lion Hill, on the Panama Railroad. 



The record of a specimen reported by Griscom (Auk, 1933, p. 301), 

 in the collection of Henry O. Havemeyer, taken by Austin Paul Smith, 

 labeled "Chiriquicito Grande" (=Chiriqui Grande), Bocas del Toro, 

 May 2, 1927, marks a point far to the west of any other report. In 

 an examination of the Havemeyer specimens, now in the Peabody 

 Museum at Yale, I have seen this skin, a male, which is marked as 

 stated. There is no other record of the species in the area, though the 

 region has been worked extensively by several naturalists. In the U.S. 

 National Museum there are 3 skins purchased from Heyde and Lux, 

 labeled Cascajal, Code, February 19, and March 13 and 17, 1889. 

 The Rio Cascajal is a tributary of the Rio Code del Norte on the 

 Atlantic slope north of La Pintada. H. T. Heyde, who was in that 

 area from the beginning of February until late April 1889, noted 

 that the trogons were taken in heavy forest. 



The white-tailed trogon seems more adaptable than some of the 

 family, as it ranges in fairly open areas in forests, and also may be 

 found in the larger, more mature stands of second growth. During the 

 dry season I have encountered them regularly in pairs with male and 

 female remaining near one another. They seem to have more curiosity 

 than others of the family, as often they have come to chatter at me 

 with a series of rapidly uttered notes — chook chook chook — accom- 

 panied by spreading tail which is vibrated slightly with the white outer 

 feathers shown prominently. An ordinary call of the male is a single 

 note czvoh repeated steadily many times. 



While these birds are active in feeding on various drupes which 

 they fly out to seize on the wing, they also take insects. One stomach 

 that I examined held bits of large ants, and another a small phasmid. 



March 11, 1946, on Barro Colorado Island, Canal Zone, I found a 

 pair nesting in a hole dug in a small termite nest located in a tree beside 

 one of the laboratory buildings. Chapman (Life in an Air Castle, 

 1938, p. 231) recorded a similar nesting site. Eisenmann (Smithsonian 

 Misc. Coll., vol. 117, no. 5, 1952, p. 28) saw these birds feeding 

 young in a similar nest site on June 27, 1950. 



An egg in the British Museum collection, taken by T. K. Salmon 



