5 8o 



BIRDS OF THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA PART 4 



Females (10 from Panama, Costa Rica, and El Salvador), wing 

 58.0-62.0 (60.1), tail 47.6-53.1 (50.0), culmen from base 10.2-12.7 

 (11.4), tarsus 16.0-18.1 (17.2) mm. 



Resident. Rare and very local, known from the foothills and high- 

 lands of Chiriqui from 600 to 2700 m, in Veraguas above Santa Fe, 

 where 2 were seen by N. G. Smith on April 7, 1975 (Ridgely, 1976, p. 

 335), Cerro Largo (360 m), Herrera, where R. R. Benson collected a 

 juvenile male on July 13, 1925, and in the Canal Zone, where A. Hughes 

 collected a male at Paraiso Station in 1867 and more recently Horace 

 Loftin and Storrs Olson have collected birds at Curundu, in 1962 and 

 1966. Two recent sight reports away from western Chiriqui are known 

 to Ridgely: Carolyn Lowe saw a male on a trail off the Chiva Chiva 

 Road, Canal Zone, on April 24, 1977 (Toucan, vol. 4, no. 5, 1977, p. 3), 

 and R. A. Rowlett and B. Whitney found a pair on Cerro Campana, 

 Province of Panama, on January 3, 1981. In Chiriqui, from where it 

 has been most frequently recorded, Monniche collected it on the Volcan 

 de Chiriqui between 1500 and 1920 m (Blake, Fieldiana: Zool., vol. 36, 

 no. 5, 1958), and M. E. M. Davidson (Proc. Calif. Acad. Sci., ser. 4, 

 vol. 23, no. 17, 1938, p. 261) found it at Cerro Punta (1800 m) and at 

 Quiel, Boquete (2190 m). This race also occurs irregularly in Chiapas, 

 Mexico, and in Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica; other races are 

 found elsewhere in Mexico and in Colombia and Ecuador. Hellmayr 

 (Field Mus. Nat. Hist., Zool. Ser., vol. 13, pt. 11, 1938, p. 238) is cor- 

 rect in indicating that Frantzius is not known to have collected at Mira- 

 valles, Costa Rica, so that Griscom's designation (Bull. Mus. Comp. 

 Zool., 1934, 75, p. 414) of this place as the type locality of nominate 

 concolor is apparently incorrect. It is better to leave it "Costa Rica." 



Little is known about the Blue Seedeater. I have never encountered 

 it in Panama and Slud (Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. 128, 1964, 

 p. 378) found it only at three places in Costa Rica. Ridgely {op. cit.) 

 says it "seems partial to bamboo thickets, at least in the Chiriqui high- 

 lands, in which it feeds some ten to thirty feet off the ground." Slud 

 saw it in shrubby growth between 1 and 2 m from the ground. He 

 describes the male's call as "a sort of half hearted singsong, 'wee awee 

 awee awee awee'." 



Rowley (Condor, 1962, p. 265) describes a nest of the Mexican race 

 relic tus as a cup placed in the forks of a slender shoot of Lantana, 

 about 3 m from the ground, made of coarse grasses lined with finer 

 grasses and other plant fibers. The nest contained one egg of the Red- 

 eyed Cowbird (Molothrus aeneus) and two of the seedeater; the latter 



