FAMILY PTI LOGON ATIDAE 



169 



C. B. Worth (Bird-Lore, vol. 41, 1939, p. 283) in late July and early 

 August noted that it was not then in song, as he heard it utter only a 

 "loud rasping shoo-wce-ee." Eisenmann writes that their songs in 

 Chiriqui are loud, clear, and deliberate, with a liquid quality suggestive 

 of the better Catharus singers, but louder, and often with a sharpness 

 that reduces the pleasing quality. The phrases are usually separated by 

 pauses of about three-fourths of a second. Songs transliterated as 

 leedldeedlee, tleeah, lee-dah, lee-dee may alternate with songs consist- 

 ing of three, two, or one phrase, usually with components like tleedlee, 

 leeee, leydee, lee-dah, leedo, leedoo, leeoo-lee or the like. They sing 

 most abundantly in the late afternoon, after 4 p.m. 



Blake (Condor, 1956, pp. 387-388) described a nest in the Monniche 

 collection, found March 30, 1932, near the Finca Lerida above Boquete 

 "located in the crevice of a rock about three feet above a road. It is 

 made almost wholly of soft moss and has a smooth lining of black hair- 

 like rootlets. Dimensions: 6x5x2^ inches, the cup 3^x2^X^4 

 inches. The two eggs, partly incubated, measured 24 X 16.7 and 22.8 X 

 16.9 mm. They are pinkish white, minutely speckled with dull chestnut 

 except toward the larger end where they are increasingly spotted and 

 blotched with the same." 



The solitaire is reported to feed on berries, including those of palms, 

 other trees and shrubs, and also on insects. In Costa Rica, Slud and 

 Skutch have found it ranging near foraging bands of ants, presumably 

 attracted by the insects that are disturbed. Two males collected at 

 Cerro Punta by Strauch (Bull. Brit. Orn. Club, 1977, p. 64) weighed 

 30.0 and 32.6 g. 



MYADESTES COLORATUS Nelson: Varied Solitaire, Solitario Variado 



Myadcstes coloratus Nelson, Smiths. Misc. Coll., vol. 60, no. 3, September 27, 

 1912, p. 23. (Cerro Pirre, 1524 m elevation, Darien.) 



Similar to Myadestes melanops, but with back and wing coverts 

 rufous-brown. 



Description. — Length 162-181 mm. Adult (sexes alike), crown, up- 

 per hindneck, and entire lower surface gray; back, wing coverts, and 

 tertials rusty brown; forehead, throat, space around eye, and anterior 

 area of side of head black; tail with three outer rectrices tipped with 

 white. 



Juvenile, compared to that of melanops, distinctly brown above, with 

 pale markings more extensive, crown more heavily spotted; abdomen 

 marked indistinctly with white. 



