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BIRDS OF THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA PART 4 



Colon. A male collected at Puerto San Antonio, Rio Chepo (Griscom, 

 Auk, 1933, p. 305) is in the Havemeyer Collection now at the Peabody 

 Museum in New Haven. The American Museum has specimens from 

 Santa Fe, Veraguas, and Cerro Azul, Province of Panama. 



I have encountered this shrike-vireo in Chiriqui at Puerto Armuelles, 

 Buena Vista (750 m on the Rio Escarrea), and at Santa Clara, 1080 m, 

 near Cerro Picacho; in Code at the head of the Rio Guabal (on the 

 Caribbean slope) and at El Valle; in the Province of Panama at Canita, 

 on Cerro Campana, and in Panama Vie jo; in Colon on the Rio Bo- 

 queron at 240 m and at the Peluca Hydrographic Station; and in many 

 places in the Canal Zone including Chiva Chiva, Gamboa, Juan Mina, 

 and Barro Colorado Island. 



Shrike-vireos stay in the densest leaves of the treetops, where their 

 movements are so slow they are rarely noticed. It was not until March 

 1950, when I was in the Serrania de Maje, where they were common, 

 that I finally succeeded in collecting 1 and was able to associate with a 

 particular species the song I had heard so often. Once, at Chiva Chiva, 

 I watched a shrike-vireo foraging. Its green color matched the leaves 

 exactly, with an occasional flash of blue from the neck. It searched the 

 branches like a vireo, but moved far more deliberately, sometimes hang- 

 ing underneath a branch while it examined the bark. Presently it seized 

 a good-sized caterpillar, held it under its toes against the branch, and 

 pulled it apart in sections, shaking its head to dislodge fluid from its bill. 



Although shrike-vireos sang constantly whenever I encountered 

 them from late December through March, I found no evidence of breed- 

 ing. Willis found a female building a mossy vireolike cup 14 m up as 

 a male sang and watched, on May 15, 1966, in the Madden Forest Re- 

 serve, Canal Zone (Willis and Eisenmann, Smiths. Cont. Zool. no. 291, 

 1979, p. 25 ) . This may be the first published information of the nesting 

 of this species. 



SMARAGDOLANIUS EXIMIUS (Baird): Yellow-browed Shrike- Vireo, 

 Follajero-Cejiamarillo 



Vireolanius eximius Baird, 1866, Rev. Amer. Birds, 1, p. 398. ("Bogota," Co- 

 lombia.) 



Vireolanius eximius mutabilis Nelson, 1912, Smiths. Misc. Coll., 60, no. 3, p. 20. 

 (Cana, 3,000 ft., eastern Panama.) 



Large for a vireo; above bright green with light blue crown; super- 

 ciliary and throat yellow; rest of undersurface light yellowish green. 



