FAMILY PARULIDAE 



299 



Resident. Common in the lowlands of western Bocas del Toro, and 

 north on the Caribbean slope to southern Honduras. In Panama this 

 species inhabits rank grass, bamboo thickets, shrubbery, and the bor- 

 ders of reedy swamps. I have collected it at Almirante and Changui- 

 nola; H. von Wedel collected it also at Isla Grande, in the Sixaola River 

 near Victoria, about 32 km northwest of Almirante (Peters, Bull. Mus. 

 Comp. Zool., vol. 71, 1931, p. 337). G. semiflava was not recorded from 

 Panama prior to 1926, when on February 14 Kennard collected a male 

 and female at Almirante (Kennard and Peters, Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. 

 Hist., vol. 38, 1928, p. 460). Its behavior is like other yellowthroats, 

 and I have found it hard to distinguish from migrant G. trichas until I 

 have had the specimen in hand. The song is a loud, sweet warble, some- 

 what suggestive of the Gray-crowned Yellowthroat and Orchard 

 Oriole (Ridgely, 1976, p. 301). Three nests collected in early April 

 of 1970 and 1971 in Costa Rica, now at the Western Foundation of 

 Vertebrate Zoology, were each found in pasture. They were open cups 

 made of wide dead strips of grass and lined with finer grass. Lloyd 

 Kiff (pers. comm.) describes the eggs as "white with sparse springling 

 of fine black and dark brown dots, mostly at the large ends. Similar to 

 G. trichas eggs, but lacking the scrawls that are present on many ex- 

 amples of the latter." Measurements of 5 eggs average 19.47x14.05 

 mm. Two eggs form a clutch. 



Eisenmann points out that the yellowish (rather than whitish or 

 brownish) abdominal area separates it from G. trichas in all plumages, 

 and males can be distinguished from all members of the genus known 

 from Panama by the more extensive black on the crown and lack of 

 gray or white on the head. 



GEOTHLYPIS POLIOCEPHALA RIDGWAYI (Griscom): Gray- 

 crowned Yellowthroat, Reinita Gargantiamarilla Carbonera 



Chamaethlypis poliocephala ridgwayi Griscom, 1930, Proc. New England Zool. 

 Club, 12, p. 7. (Boruca, southwestern Costa Rica.) 



Small; crown gray; rest of upper surface grayish olive-green; un- 

 dersurface yellow. 



Description. — Length 115-131 mm. Adult male, lores and area just 

 below eye black; crown gray; side of face and rest of upper surface, 

 grayish olive-green, brighter, more yellowish on rump, upper tail co- 

 verts, and wings; undersurface, bend of wing, and underwing coverts 

 yellow, fading into buffy whitish on abdomen and to light buffy olive 

 on sides and flanks. 



