4 66 



BIRDS OF THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA PART 4 



fuscous; claws dark neutral gray; gape including a narrow line on cut- 

 ting edge of maxilla dull white. 



Measurements. — Males (10 from Panama), wing 94.9-105.0 

 (100.4), tail 86.0-93.3 (90.5), culmen from base 18.6-21.8 (20.0), 

 tarsus 24.0-27.9 (25.6) mm. 



Females (10 from Panama), wing 86.8-96.0 (91.4), tail 77.1-85.3 

 (80.3), culmen from base 17.6-20.0 (18.7), tarsus 22.1-24.9 (23.4) 

 mm. 



Resident. Common in the lowlands and lower foothills of the Carib- 

 bean slope from El Uracillo, Code, to Mandinga, San Bias; more local 

 on the Pacific slope, where I have found it at Sona, Veraguas, El Valle, 

 Code, Cerro Campana, Panama, in the Canal Zone area, east to the 

 middle Bayano River Valley (Maje area) (Ridgely, in litt.) A series 

 of 9 specimens from Santa Fe, Veraguas, in the American Museum 

 of Natural History was judged by Parkes (Proc. Biol. Soc. Washing- 

 ton, vol. 82, 1969, p. 239) to be intermediate between willisi and the 

 nominate race. He also mentions a report of several pairs at Puerto 

 Obaldia, San Bias, at the Colombian border; birds from this region 

 might possibly pertain to the Colombian race, erythrolaema. A record 

 of a male from the Rio Lara, Darien collected by Festa in 1895 and pub- 

 lished by Salvadori and Festa (Bol. Mus. Zool. Anat. Comp. R. Univ. 

 Torino, vol. 14, no. 339, 1899, p. 4) is probably an erroneously identi- 

 fied H. rubica. 



In the Canal Zone, the breeding season seems to run at least from 

 May to August. Arbib and Loetscher (Auk, 1935, p. 327) found it 

 breeding during July and August. Stone (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila- 

 delphia, vol. 70, 1918, p. 279) mentions a nest with two fresh eggs col- 

 lected on May 14; this was "in a cluster of orchids on a vine eight feet 

 up; a cup made of dead leaves wound tightly with green vines and 

 lined with brown rootlets." A nest found by Major General G. Ralph 

 Meyer in the Madden Forest Reserve on May 30, 1941, was similar. 

 It held three glossy white eggs that measure 23.9x17.1, 24.1x17.5, 

 and 23.4 X 17.3 mm. A male in drab female plumage collected by Olson 

 in the Canal Zone on April 20, 1963, had the testes fully developed 

 (Olson, Bird-Banding, 1965, p. 113). 



This species shows considerable individual variation, but a specimen 

 collected by Olson near Albrook Field, Canal Zone, on March 15, 1963 

 (USNM no. 534191) and identified as female with undeveloped ova- 

 ries, but possibly mis-sexed, is worthy of special mention as it has a 

 very distinct orange median crown stripe, similar to that of H. rubica, 



