578 



BIRDS OF THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA PART 4 



Chiriqui I have collected only an adult male, at San Felix in 1956, and 

 Ridgely has encountered it once, when he saw 2 males in a shrubby 

 clearing at 1100 m, above the Fortuna Dam site on March 3, 1976. 

 Until females or subadult males are collected from Chiriqui it cannot 

 be determined if this population is referable to ochrogyne. In the Pearl 

 Islands, W. W. Brown, Jr., found it at San Miguel and Saboga (Thayer 

 and Bangs, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., vol. 46, 1905, p. 159) and I col- 

 lected it on San Jose. I also found it common on Coiba Island off the 

 Pacific coast of Veraguas, although Ridgely (in litt.) saw only 2 birds 

 during a week in April 1976. Beyond Panama, this race is found in 

 southwestern Colombia and in western Colombia south at least to 

 Buenaventura and east as far as the Magdalena River Valley. 



Hallinan (Auk, 1924, p. 321) found a nest at Gatun, Canal Zone, on 

 April 11, 1909. It was in a small shrub about 1 m from the ground 

 and was made of fine roots and grasses thinly woven. The 3 eggs were 

 grayish white with brown spots; one measured 4.25 by 3.75 cm. 



SPOROPHILA MAXIMILIANI LOFTINI (Wetmore): Great-billed 

 Seed-finch, Arrocero Piquigrande 



Oryzoborus crassirostris loftini Wetmore, 1970, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, 

 82, p. 774. (Almirante, Bocas del Toro.) 



Small; bill extremely thick; male entirely black; female dark brown, 

 slightly lighter, more reddish on undersurface. 



Description. — Length 140 mm. Adult male, entirely black. 



Adult female, upper surface, including lesser wing coverts, olive- 

 brown, slightly lighter on rump and upper tail coverts; rest of wing 

 feathers blackish brown, edged olive-brown; tail blackish brown; 

 undersurface lighter brown. 



Measurements. — Males (2 from Almirante, Bocas del Toro), wing 

 672-67.4 (67.3), tail 58.7-60.7 (59.7), oilmen from base 18.0-18.3 

 (18.2), tarsus 18.2-18.8 (18.5) mm. 



Female (1 from Almirante, Bocas del Toro), wing 65.0, tail 59.0, 

 culmen from base 18.1, tarsus 18.2 mm. 



Resident. Known only from Almirante, Bocas del Toro. The first 

 intimation of the presence of this large-billed finch in Panama was a 

 male found at Almirante on June 10, 1965, caught in the edge of a 

 closed mist net set by men capturing birds for banding under the direc- 

 tion of Dr. Pedro Galindo. As it was partly decomposed it could be 

 preserved only in part as a feathered specimen. Those working with 



