FAMILY TIIRAUPIDAE 



437 



song as "a fast, sibilant, twittering tsu tsu tseewee tsu-tseewee tsu- 

 tseewee tseewee tseewee, with variations. Calls are chup; also chueep; 

 also seeee" 



THRAUPIS EPISCOPUS CANA (Swainson) 



T.[angara] cana Swainson, 1836, Ornith. Drawings, pt. 3, pi. 37. (no locality; 

 Caracas, Venezuela designated by Hellmayr, 1924, Archiv. £. Naturg., ser. A, 

 90(2), p. 185.) 



Tanagra (Aglaia) diaconus Lesson, 1842, Rev. Zool., 5, p. 175. (Realejo, Nica- 

 ragua.) 



Tonagra cana dilucida Thayer and Bangs, 1905, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., 46, p. 157. 

 (San Miguel Island, Bay of Panama.) 



Characters. — Lighter, especially on sides than either insular race. 



A male collected at Puerto Armuelles, Chiriqui, on February 2, 1966, 

 had the iris dark brown; maxilla and tip of mandible black; rest of 

 mandible neutral gray; tarsus and toes dull neutral gray; claws fuscous. 

 Females I have collected were similar. 



Measurements. — Males (10 from Panama), wing 80.0-90.1 (85.9), 

 tail 59.8-64.0 (61.7), oilmen from base 12.2-14.7 (13.6), tarsus 16.1- 

 19.4 (17.6) mm. 



Females (10 from Panama), wing 84.0-88.0 (85.5), tail 58.2-65.4 

 (60.6), culmen from base 13.4-14.5 (14.0, average of 9), tarsus 16.4- 

 19.2 (17.9) mm. 



Resident. Abundant and widespread throughout Panama, up to 

 around 1800 m (but scarce above 1200 m) in the western highlands 

 (Ridgely, 1976, p. 319). Monniche (Blake, Fieldiana: Zool., vol. 36, 

 no. 5, 1958, p. 566) collected it on the Volcan de Chiriqui between 1560 

 and 1620 m. 



This species has a very long breeding season; in the Canal Zone it has 

 been recorded nesting from January (Chapman, My Tropical Air Cas- 

 tle, 1929, p. 383) to August (Arbib and Loetscher, Auk, 1935, p. 327). 

 The nest may be placed anywhere from on the ground to 35 m up in a 

 tree, or in a man-made structure like an old shed; sometimes the nests of 

 other birds, either abandoned or active, are usurped. Both sexes par- 

 ticipate in construction. A nest found by Major General G. Ralph 

 Meyer at Pacora, Panama, was cup shaped, made of grass, plant fiber, 

 inner bark, and small twigs and vines, and lined with fine grass, bark 

 of a vine, and aerial rootlets. Other descriptions of nests are similar. 

 Two eggs form a clutch; they are "grayish white, very thickly marked 

 with brown, denser towards the larger end" (Hallinan, Auk, 1924, p. 



