49 8 



BIRDS OF THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA— PART 4 



Chiriqui is invalid. It was supposed to differ in having the underparts 

 yellower and the abdomen whiter than the nominate form, but the 

 orangish breast band does not differ from more brightly colored in- 

 dividuals from Costa Rica and there are no differences in white versus 

 gray in the abdomen. 



Family COEREBIDAE: Honeycreepers, Mieleros 



[The Coerebidae is a totally artificial collection of nine-primaried 

 oscines with bill shapes that are divergent from those of warblers, 

 finches, or tanagers; hence they have proved difficult to place. For the 

 most part, the various genera are likewise very divergent from each 

 other and although it is now widely recognized that the Coerebidae is a 

 polyphyletic assemblage (e.g., Meyer de Schauensee, Birds of South 

 America, 1966, p. 454), until each of its constituent genera can be con- 

 fidently assigned to a place in some other family it is convenient to carry 

 the old familial designation simply for ease of locating a particular 

 taxon. 



A number of "coerebids" are clearly derived from tanagers, includ- 

 ing Dacnis, Chlorophanes, and Cyanerpes (see Storer, Living Bird, 

 1969, pp. 130-132). Storer (Check-list Birds World, vol. 13, 1970, 

 p. 359) has even taken the step of including Iridophanes in the genus 

 Tangara. Although it has been suggested that certain genera such as 

 Coereba and Conirostrum may be related to the Parulidae, these studies 

 suffer from insufficient comparisons with some of the more warblerlike 

 members of the Thraupidae such as Hemispingus and Hemithraupis. 

 Neither Coereba nor Conirostrum bear close resemblance to any paru- 

 lid, whereas the former at least has some plumage similarities with 

 Hemithraupis flavicollis. It has been suggested that Diglossa may be 

 related to the emberizine finches of the genera Acanthidops and Hap- 

 lospiza (e.g., Meyer de Schauensee, Birds of South America, 1966, p. 

 456) . Although it seems not to have been suggested before, the Andean 

 species Oreomanes frazeri strikes me as being an obvious derivative of 

 the Emberizinae. It has a very straight, pointed bill like an icterid and 

 very likely feeds by gaping, but its plumage is so similar to that of 

 species in the high Andean emberizine genus Poospiza that a relation- 

 ship between the two seems inescapable. S.L.O.] 



Ten species of "honeycreepers" are found in Panama. Some form 

 the nuclei of mixed species flocks that often congregate in flowering oi 

 fruiting trees; others are less social or decidedly solitary. None are 



