6o SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 69 



afternoon, suspended from a low limb of a tree overhanging the 

 Rio Indio, near Gatun. The animal reached out and with the two- 

 hooked hand drew a small leafy branch to its mouth. Soon noting 

 my canoe, only a few feet distant, the sloth stopped feeding and 

 began to climb slowly away. No specimens were obtained in extreme 

 eastern Panama, but I saw one which had been captured in the 

 forest at 2,000 feet near the Darien gold mines at Cana, and was 

 kept alive for a time by a local resident. 



A peculiar prolonged cry occasionally heard in the forest at night 

 was attributed by my men to the perico Iijero, a name applied in the 

 Canal Zone to both the two-toed and three-toed sloths. When ques- 

 tioned further, however, they were unable to name the species, or 

 ignored the existence of two kinds (Choloepus and Brady pus) in the 

 same forest. According to Eugene Andre * and other observers this 

 cry, elsewhere believed by natives to be given by a sloth, is in reality 

 the call of the large goatsucker, or potoo (Nyctibius). It has a 

 rather weird quality when heard in a tall, partially moonlit forest at 

 such an hour. 



Specimens of C. hoffmanni collected by W. W. .Brown, Jr., at 

 Bugaba and at 4,000 to 4,800 feet near Boquete are listed by Bangs 

 (1902, p. 20). Examples taken for the British Museum by J. H. 

 Batty are recorded by Thomas (1903a, p. 42) from Espartal, Sevilla 

 and Cebaco, small islands off the coast of southwestern Panama. 

 The same collector obtained specimens for the American Museum of 

 Natural History, which are noted by Allen (1904, p. 58) as follows: 

 " Five adults and 3 young, as follows, selected from a large series : 

 Parida Island, 1 adult male, Nov. 22; Boquete, 1 adult female, 

 Sept. 14; Boqueron, 1 adult male, 2 adult females, and 3 young, 

 Oct. 13-24, Nov. 22, and Dec. 1. 



Mr. Batty's large series of some 50 specimens shows a wide range 

 of individual variation in color, some being much lighter or darker 

 than the average ; some have a strong greenish tinge over the whole 

 head and shoulders, while others show no greenish tinge whatever. 



Specimens examined: Bocas del Toro, 1 ; Bugaba, I 2 ; Boqueron, 

 34 3 ; Boquete, 6*; Lion Hill, 1 ; Parida Island, 2 3 ; Porto Bello, 1 ; 

 Rio Indio (near Gatun), 2. 



1 A Naturalist in the Guianas, 1904, p. 144. 



2 Collection Mus. Comp. Zool. 



3 Collection Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. 



* Four in collection Mus. Comp. Zool ; two in Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. 



