FAMILY TURDIDAE 



159 



orange; tarsus and toes grayish brown, becoming paler brownish white 

 along the narrow thin knifelike posterior margin; claws of two lateral 

 anterior toes dull brownish white; others grayish brown. 



An adult, taken on the same date, was like the male except that the 

 tarsus and toes were somewhat duller colored. 



Measurements. — Males (10 from Chiriqui), wing 84.7-90.5 (87.3), 

 tail 66.0-73.1 (70.2), eulmen from base 17.6-19.5 (18.4), tarsus 33.3- 



36.7 (34.5) mm. 



Females (10 from Volcan de Chiriqui and Cerro Punta, Chiriqui), 

 wing 78.3-84.2 (81.2), tail 62.0-68.1 (64.0), eulmen from base 17.6- 



18.8 (18.0), tarsus 32.1-34.4 (33.2) mm. 



Resident on the high slopes of the volcano in western Chiriqui, 

 mainly above 2000 m, but fairly common down to 1600 m at Cerro 

 Punta, found also in southern Costa Rica; other races range from 

 northern Costa Rica through Mexico. Phillips (Auk, 1969, pp. 605- 

 623) reviews the characters separating this species from C. occidentalis. 



These birds range over the mountain slopes in undergrowth and 

 usually remain concealed. They move about quietly and are difficult 

 to observe unless one appears in the bushes bordering a trail, on the 

 ground at the edge of a pasture, or on the banks of a stream. In late 

 February and early March, they occurred in pairs, and were not espe- 

 cially shy. 



Occasionally one came beneath the window of our quarters, where 

 it hopped quickly over the ground or rested quietly, with head erect. 

 The call was a low kree-ee-eet, rather harsh in sound. They responded 

 quickly to an imitation of it. 



There has been no account to date of the nest and eggs of this bird 

 in Panama. Carriker (Ann. Carnegie Mus., vol. 6, 1910, p. 747) in an 

 account of the closely allied race, Catharus frantzii frantzii, on Vol- 

 can Irazu in Costa Rica, found 2 nests, April 13 and 14, 1902, one of 

 which he described as "made entirely of green moss, but lined with 

 fine grass and rootlets. It is very large and bulky for the size of the 

 bird, but the cavity of the nest is small . . . [the nest was] placed on sprays 

 of bamboo hanging over the side of a deep ravine, and about seven feet 

 from the ground. The eggs are pale blue, thickly speckled and blotched 

 with cinnamon-rufous and lilac, thickest about the larger end, in one 

 egg forming a cap of rufous and lilac. Measurements: 24.5 to 25.5 X 

 18 to 19 mm." 



In the Bambito-Cerro Punta area of western Chiriqui, this species, 

 although shy and hard to see, is common, usually on or near the ground, 



