FAMILY COEREBIDAE 



505 



DIGLOSSA BARITULA PLUMBEA Cabanis: Slaty Flower-piercer, 

 Mielero Picaflor 



Figure 39 



Diglossa plumbea Cabanis, 1860, Journ. f. Ornith., 8, p. 411, (Costa Rica.) 

 Diglossa plumbea veraguensis Griscom, 1927, Amer. Mus. Novit., no. 280, p. 16. 

 (Chitra (5000 ft.), Yeraguas, Pacific slope of western Panama.) 



Small; lower mandible upturned and upper mandible hooked at tip; 

 male with upper surface slaty blue gray and undersurface slate-gray; 

 female olive-green on upper surface, lighter below. 



Description. — Length 102-110 mm. Adult male, crown, sides of 

 head, and nape bluish black; rest of upper surface bluish slate-gray; 

 wings and tail black, with wing coverts tipped and outer web of remiges 

 and rectrices edged bluish slate-gray; undersurface slate-gray, slightly 

 lighter on abdomen; underwing coverts gray. 



Adult female, side of head and entire upper surface olive-gray; wings 

 and tail blackish, with wing coverts tipped and outer web of remiges 

 and rectrices edged olive-gray; throat, breast, sides, and flanks deep 

 grayish olive, faintly streaked with dark olive-buff; abdomen and un- 

 dertail coverts dark olive-buff; underwing coverts whitish. 



Immature, like female, but upper surface slightly grayer, undersur- 

 face paler, marked with pinkish buff. 



Measurements. — Males (10 from Chiriqui and Costa Rica), wing 

 54.2-58.2 (56.2), tail 41.3-47.9 (43.2), culmen from base 9.2-11.0 

 (10.4), tarsus 15.6-17.9 (16.9) mm. 



Females (10 from Chiriqui and Costa Rica), wing 50.5-54.9 (52.8), 

 tail 38.1-42.5 (40.2), culmen from base 9.4-11.2 (10.4), tarsus 16.2- 

 18.2 (17.5) mm. 



Resident. Common and widespread in the highlands of western 

 Chiriqui in shrubby areas and forest edges. Known also from Chitra, 

 Veraguas. Monniche (Blake, Fieldiana: Zool, vol. 36, no. 5, 1958, pp. 

 555-556) collected it on the Volcan de Chiriqui between 1590 and 3150 

 m, and W. W. Brown, Jr. (Bangs, Proc. New England Zool. Club, vol. 

 3, 1902, p. 63) took 3 specimens near Boquete between 1350 and 2100 

 m in March and April of 1901. 



Diglossa baritula favors highlands where the flowers from which it 

 takes nectar are abundant. It occurs from central Mexico through 

 Central America to Peru, Bolivia, and northwestern Argentina. The 

 populations of western Panama and Costa Rica are distinctive in that 

 the male's undersurface is gray rather than cinnamon; immatures, 

 however, have some of the pinkish buff tones of the adult males of 



