FAMILY FRINGILLIDAE 



557 



GEOSPIZA JACARINA SPLENDENS (Vieillot): Blue-black 

 Grassquit, Arrocero Piquiagudo 



Figure 45 



Fringilla splendens Vieillot, 1817, Nouv. Diet. Hist. Nat., nouv. ed., 12, p. 173. 

 (Cayenne.) 



Very small; male entirely dark, glossy blue-black; female, upper sur- 

 face dull grayish brown, undersurface dingy white, streaked brown on 

 breast, sides, and flanks. 



Description. — Length 93-108 mm. Adult male, entire body and wing 

 coverts dark, glossy blue-black, sometimes edged brownish; remiges 

 and rectrices black, edged blue-black; a few concealed feathers on sides 

 of upper breast, at bend of wing, are white. 



Adult female, upper surface, including lesser wing coverts, dull 

 grayish brown, rest of wing feathers dark dusky brown; tail dusky; 

 undersurface whitish, with throat, breast, sides, and flanks washed 

 pinkish buff and streaked dusky; underwing coverts white, washed with 

 pinkish buff. 



Immature male, like female, increasingly covered with blue-black. 



A male collected at El Potrero, Code, on March 7, 1962, had the iris 

 dark brown; maxilla and tip of mandible black; base of mandible 

 neutral gray; tarsus and toes fuscous-black; claws black. A female 

 taken there the same day had the iris dark brown; maxilla dull brown; 

 a wash of same on sides of mandibular rami; rest of mandibular dull 

 brownish white; tarsus, toes, and claws dark dull brown. 



Measurements. — Males (10 from Panama), wing 45.5-49.5 (47 A), 

 tail 37.7-44.9 (41.5), culmen from base 9.6-10.9 (10.3), tarsus 13.1- 

 15.1 (14.3) mm. 



Females (10 from Panama), wing 44.0-48.5 (45.9), tail 37.5-41.8 

 (39.6), culmen from base 9.2-11.0 (10.3), tarsus 13.2-15.2 (14.2) mm. 



Resident. Abundant throughout the lowlands of both slopes, al- 

 though more numerous on the Pacific side, and less common in the foot- 

 hills. In the Chiriqui highlands, it has been recorded at least to 1590 m 

 (Blake, Fieldiana: Zool., vol. 36, no. 5, 1958, p. 571) and I have also 

 found it on the Pearl Archipelago and Coiba Island off the Pacific 

 Coast. This race ranges from Mexico to northern South America; 

 other races are found south in the Guianas and Brazil to northern 

 Argentina and on the Pacific Coast from Ecuador to northern Chile. 



Although this species has long been placed in the monotypic genus 

 Volatinia, Steadman (Trans. San Diego Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. 19, no. 



