ADDITIONS TO RECORDS OF BIRDS KNOWN 

 FROM THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 



By Alexander Wetmore 

 Research Associate, Smithsonian Institution 



The notes that follow, pertaining to recent studies on avian collec- 

 tions made in Panama, include descriptions of two species and two 

 geographic races not known previously. The two named from 

 Darien are based on specimens received from the Gorgas Memorial 

 Laboratory in Panama and derive from recent field work directed 

 by Dr. Pedro Galindo. Included with these are further records of 

 birds from the little-known island of Escudo de Veraguas, located 

 18 kilometers at sea off the base of the Valiente Peninsula, Bocas del 

 Toro, and report of two North American migrants not found 

 previously in the republic. 



I. ADDITIONAL RECORDS FROM ISLA ESCUDO DE 



VERAGUAS, WITH DESCRIPTION OF A NEW 



SPECIES OF HUMMINGBIRD 



In the course of a visit to Isla Escudo de Veraguas early in 

 March 1958, I collected a thick-spined rat (genus Hoplomys), the 

 first island record for this group, and a race that proved to be new 

 to science (Handley, 1959, pp. 9-10). Following its description. 

 Dr. C. O. Handley, Jr., of the U. S. National Museum, through 

 cooperation of the U. S. Army, came to the island in 1962 and lived 

 there in a shore camp from March 20 to 24. In addition to a series 

 of the rat, and many bats, he preserved in formalin a number of birds 

 caught in mist nets, and prepared a few others, shot for specimens, 

 as study skins. The 41 birds collected have added considerably to 

 earlier information on the avifauna, available from my own brief 

 visit four years earlier (Wetmore, 1959, pp. 1-27). 



Migrants recorded by Dr. Handley include several that had not 

 been listed from the island previously. A belted kingfisher, taken 

 March 21, is the eastern subspecies Megaceryle alcyon alcyon. 

 Several eastern wood peewees (Contopus virens) were present and 



SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS, VOL. 145, NO. 6 



