;6 



BIRDS OF THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA PART 4 



the western and eastern sections of the Province of Panama, the lower 

 Bayano Valley (Chepo, San Antonio); in the northern Canal Zone 

 also on the Caribbean slope, including the lower and middle Chagres 

 Valley (Juan Mina, Lion Hill, Gatun, Fort San Lorenzo) and the Rio 

 Boqueron above Madden Lake (Peluca Hydrographic Station) and the 

 Province of Colon east to Portobelo. It follows clearings into the 

 mountains (reaching 1860 m at Cerro Punta) of Chiriqui (Rio Chi- 

 riqui, Fortuna Dam site), Veraguas (Santa Fe, Chitra), Panama 

 (Cerro Campana, Cerro Azul-Cerro Jefe area). 



From the lowlands of western Chiriqui the subspecies elutus 

 ranges for a short distance into southern Costa Rica through the Golfo 

 Dulce area to the lower valley of the Rio Terraba (specimens in collec- 

 tions of the Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology) . When found 

 in the same general area as the more secretive Buff-breasted Wren 

 (Thryothorus leucotls galbraithii) the Plain Wren may be identified by 

 its paler colors and less heavily barred wings. 



These wrens are found in thickets, brushy pastures, and low cover 

 in other open areas, including suburban gardens, hedgerows, and weed- 

 grown fields, outside the heavy forests. Here they forage in pairs, and 

 at the proper season, in family groups. While usually encountered low 

 down, they also explore the branches of trees above the thickets, espe- 

 cially when these have tangles of vines that provide cover. In such lo- 

 cations they move about with much low chatter, often concealed among 

 the leaves, hiding carefully at any alarm. Neglected orange and grape- 

 fruit groves, where the trees have many epiphytes, are often attractive 

 to them. 



In Eisenmann's opinion, elutus is, after the House Wren, the most 

 numerous wren in open, extensively deforested areas of Panama, chiefly 

 in the Pacific lowlands, but also very common in the Boquete district, 

 Chiriqui, and the cleared areas of the Caribbean watershed in the Canal 

 Zone. The highest bird he has found was seen singing in a field at 

 Cerro Punta, Chiriqui, at 1860 m on December 11, 1962. While un- 

 recorded in Darien, where replaced by the essentially South American 

 T. leucotis, both species occur sympatrically in the Canal Zone and in 

 open or cleared areas of eastern Province of Panama. 



The song, heard constantly, is a series of whistled notes, ending 

 with one or two in harsher tone, from which country residents in Costa 

 Rica call them "chinchirigui" (varied by some to "richichi"). When 

 heard near at hand this is found to be a combination of three or more 

 whistled sounds followed by a harsher call, the first given by the male, 



