FAMILY TROGONIDAE 4II 



David, Veragua," as trogons of this group are not found in the 

 lowlands. P. L. Sclater (Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1856, pp. 138-143) 

 wrote that "Mr. Bridges arrived at David in the month of January 

 in the present year and stayed there until the middle of the following 

 March." According to Sclater's account Bridges' collections were 

 made "near the town on the banks of the river, or between that and 

 the Boqueti — an elevated savannah of about 4,000 feet above the 

 sea level" on the volcano. It is appropriate from this to list the 

 type locality as Boquete, as the bird is found in that area. 



Specimens in the British Museum collected by Arce come from 

 Calovevora and Santa Fe, in Veraguas, and the Cordillera de Tole 

 and the southern slope of the volcano in Chiriqui. Salvin's record 

 for Castillo (Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1870, p. 202) is questionable 

 as this is a lowland area. Records from specimens sent by J. H. 

 Batty to Rothschild (Auk, 1950, p. 364) labeled from islands off 

 the coast of Chiriqui and Veraguas are erroneous for this bird of 

 the inland mountains. West of Tole this trogon was secured by 

 Griscom on Cerro Flores, inland from Remedios, and by Mrs. David- 

 son at Chame on this same ridge. Many have come from the Boquete 

 area on the volcano, including specimens in the Monniche collection 

 (Blake, Fieldiana: Zool., vol. 36, no. 5, 1958, p. 523) from Camp 

 Cilindro and Camp Holcomb on the Caribbean slope in Bocas del 

 Toro. On the western side of the volcano they are less common, 

 as I have found only 2, a female on Cerro Pando, and a male on 

 the Rio Chiriqui Viejo at Palo Santo, beyond El Volcan. 



Blake (Condor, 1956, p. 387) described a nest in the Monniche 

 collection, from the Finca Lerida taken July 2, 1932, located 2 meters 

 from the ground in a large tree in a cavity "caused by the rotting 

 of a branch" with the single egg resting on "rotten wood of the 

 cavity's floor." The egg, white, slightly glossy, measured 26.9 X 

 22.5 mm. 



The orange-yellow of the breast and abdomen of this trogon is 

 as unstable a color as that of Trogon violaceus since it fades appreci- 

 ably even when protected in light-proof museum cases. The hundred 

 year old skins in the British Museum and in the National Museum 

 have lost much of this color, as have those taken in 1901 by W. W. 

 Brown, Jr., and those collected by Benson in 1931. Griscom named 

 a race from Cerro Flores in eastern Chiriqui on the basis of yellower 

 color of the under surface, but this is covered by variation in those 

 of farther west in the Republic in the series now available. Birds 

 that I collected on Cerro Campana average more orange than some 



