8 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 134 
tion to the type series from Coiba, contains one skin labeled “Hica- 
ron” (intended for Isla Jicardn) which is a typical example of Cy- 
clarhis gujanensis subflavescens of the hill country of the mainland. 
Isla Jicarén, a small island, lies immediately south of Coiba, with its 
larger neighbor between it and the distant isthmian shore. It would 
be most remarkable to have the mainland race on Jicarén, and a 
completely different one on Coiba. Batty’s “Coiba” specimens also 
include a juvenal sparrow of the species Zonotrichia capensis, which 
is resident in Panama only in the mountains from Chiriqui eastward, 
mainly above 3,000 feet elevation, occasionally somewhat lower, but 
never in Panama near sea level. 
It is undoubtedly this mixing of localities in the Batty material, 
aided by the fact that the collection runs largely to the more easily 
found and conspicuous species, that has caused the considerable de- 
gree of endemism in the resident birds to be overlooked by the careful 
systematists who have handled the skins. 
Among the few other naturalists who have visited the island, a 
party of British scientists traveling on the yacht St. George came to 
Bahia Damas on the afternoon of August 31, 1924, and remained for 
five days to make shore collections, Lt. Col. H. J. Kelsall, the orni- 
thologist, with his assistant Cullingford, obtained a small lot of birds 
which are now in the British Museum (Natural History). Collecting 
was confined to the vicinity of the headquarters of the Penal Colony, 
with one trip by cayuco along mangroves and past a low bluff to a 
small stream, where Kelsall shot a few birds.t Apparently this was 
near Bajo Espafia at the mouth of the Rio Catival. No published 
report was made on the specimens obtained, which include a few of 
the forms peculiar to the island. Dr. Alejandro Méndez, Director of 
the Museo Nacional of Panama, visited Coiba in 1932, when he made 
observations in various branches of natural history, including the 
birds. 
The only other ornithologist known to me to have visited Coiba 
is William Beebe, who was there for a day while on Templeton 
Crocker’s yacht Zaca in 1938. On March 1g the ship crossed from 
Bahia Honda, on the coast of Veraguas, to Ensenada Hermosa, a 
bay on the western side of Isla Coiba. The following night while 
they were collecting with lights on Banco Hannibal to the west a 
1For accounts of this expedition see Douglas, A. J. A., and Johnson, P. H., 
The South Seas today, being an account of the cruise of the yacht St. George 
to the South Pacific, London, 1926, pp. 73-81; and Collenette, C. L., Sea-girt 
jungles, the experiences of a naturalist with the “St. George” Expedition, Lon- 
don, no date [1926], pp. 186-195. 
