SERPHOPHAGA.—MIONECTES. 21 
distinguishing it from S. cinerea all break down ; for the vertical feathers of the head 
of some of our northern specimens have white at their bases, just as in southern ones; 
the wing-coverts are tipped with dusky white, and the under surfaces of the two forms 
are not to be distinguished in colour. 
Serphophaga cinerea was described in 1844 by Strickland from a specimen said to 
have come from Chili}, probably a wrong locality; but the species has a wide range 
throughout the Andes from Bolivia northwards to the valley of the Cauca. Missing 
the Isthmus of Panama, it reappears in the more mountainous parts of that State and 
in Costa Rica. It frequents the highland forests up to an elevation of 5000 and 
10,000 feet, for Tschudi records it from the Sierra de Tarma (10,000 feet), Fraser from 
Cuenca (8200 feet), and Salmon from Envigado (5500 feet), but it is also found, 
according to Jelski and Stolzmann, at a low level in the environs of Lima ®. 
Its habit of living near running streams has been recorded by several travellers. 
Fraser speaks of it as hopping from stone to stone in the Gualaquiza river, and 
Boucard, who observed it at Naranjo in Costa Rica, says it lives along the streams and 
sits on the stones lying in or near the water just in the manner of Sayornis aquatica. 
Stolzmann also speaks of its having the same habits in Peru. The last-named traveller 
found its nest towards the end of June attached to the extremity of a bough, to which 
it was suspended over the surface of the water. The nest was composed almost 
exclusively of moss and lined with feathers, and fixed by its lower surface to the 
branch. Salmon also found its nest, which he does not describe, but says the eggs are 
creamy white’. 
MIONECTES. 
Mionectes, Cabanis in Tschudi’s Fauna Per. p. 147 (1845) (type Muscicapa straticollis, d’Orb. 
& Lafr.) ; Scl. Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. xiv. p. 111. 
Mionectes is the first of our genera which is placed in the “Elaineine” by Mr. 
Sclater, but the rictal bristles, though shorter than in most of the “ Platyrhynchine,” 
are quite obvious, and the structure of the bill is similar to that of the genera we have 
just discussed. 
The genus itself is a neotropical one spread over the greater part of South America 
as far as South Brazil on the one hand and Southern Mexico on the other. Of the 
two sections into which the four species of Mionectes are now divided, M. olivaceus 
reaches Costa Rica and MV. oleagineus Southern Mexico, both being also found in the 
southern continent. 
The general plumage of the members of Mionectes is olivaceous, with the abdomen 
either yellowish or cinnamon. The bill of MZ. olivaceus is rather elongated and com- 
pressed, the sides converging gradually to the tip, the width at the gape being 
considerably less than half the length of the tomia, the culmen is nearly straight for 
the greater part of its length and then curves abruptly to the tip; the nostrils are open, 
