74 



BIRDS OF THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA PART 4 



Early reports in Panama were by Griscom (Amer. Mus., Nov. no. 

 293, 1928, p. 1) of 1 collected near Almirante by Benson, and by Ken- 

 nardand Peters (Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. 38, no. 10, 1928, p. 

 459) of 1, taken also at Almirante, by Kennard, on March 16, 1926. 

 Peters later (Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., vol. 71, 1931, p. 330) recorded 

 a female from this locality collected by Hasso von Wedel, August 10, 

 1927. A male and female in the Havemeyer Collection at the Peabody 

 Museum were taken there by Austin Smith, April 19 and 23, 1927. 



Eisenmann (Condor, 1957, p. 256), who observed these birds at 

 Changuinola in 1956, with reference to Hellmayr, described the song 

 as loud and ringing and wrote, "... those that I heard from zeledoni 

 were different from any I have noted from elutus, but they showed 

 some resemblance." Slud (Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., Bull. 128, 1964, p. 

 285) who described the notes in detail, concluded that "the songs of 

 modestus and zeledoni sound identical to me except that zeledoni gives 

 .... an uncharacteristic deliberate swir, swirrst, the last note rising, so 

 to speak, in an overhanging curve. Also zeledoni has a harder, heavier 

 call note." He considered that birds from the Terraba Valley, on the 

 Pacific slope in the southwest, showed approach to zeledoni in bill size 

 and grayness. Dr. Thomas Howell, who has seen the bird in Nicaragua, 

 informs me {in litt.) that to him the song and calls suggested those of 

 T. modestus. 



My own personal knowledge of zeledoni has come from encounters 

 near Changuinola in western Bocas del Toro, where I collected 1 

 February 13, 1958, and saw others briefly February 28, but did not 

 hear the calls or song. Museum specimens have increased, so that from 

 the 4 listed by Hellmayr in his discussion on relationship, I have mea- 

 surements of 7 males and 5 females (including Ridgway's type), and 

 have examined several others in which the sex has not been marked. All 

 have shown the larger size and the darker, distinctly gray coloration on 

 which Ridgway described the bird as a distinct species, with no inte- 

 gration to the smaller size and brighter colors of T. modestus elutus 

 with which it has been supposed to hybridize. From my examination 

 of specimens it has seemed to me that zeledoni is a distinct species. 

 However, because of my slight personal knowledge of the bird in life it 

 is listed here as a geographic race, with the suggestion that it be studied 

 further when there is suitable opportunity. 



The range of zeledoni, from the published record in Panama, is 

 restricted to the Caribbean lowlands, inland only to the interior foot- 

 hills. In Costa Rica, it ranges only on the Caribbean coastal plain 

 (being replaced by nominate modestus at about 600 m, fide Slud, 



