176 DENDROCOLAPTIDA. 
neighbourhood of Bahia either in size or colour. The Amazons bird is perhaps a little 
more tawny on the throat and slightly more rufescent on the back, but the difference 
is trivial. This bird is the G. castelnaudi of Des Murs. 
In its distribution G. cuneatus is found in Mexico and Central America almost 
exclusively in the low-lying forests of the eastern side of the Cordillera at least as far 
south as Nicaragua, where it also occurs in the forests bordering the Pacific Ocean. 
In South America it spreads over most of the tropical portion of that continent as far 
as the forests of Eastern Brazil, and occurs throughout the great valley of the 
Amazons. 
In habits it is strictly a bird of the dense forest, and climbs trees like a Woodpecker. 
Subfam. DENDROCOLAPTINA*. 
We have some hesitation in placing Sittosomus with the Dendrocolaptine, as the 
bill is so much more feeble than in the other genera of the subfamily. Moreover, the 
nostrils are not quite so distinctly open, the upper edge being slightly membranous. 
The hallux is short, as in Glyphorhynchus and the Dendrocolaptine generally, and the 
tail distinctly spinous. Whenever the arrangement of the whole of the Dendrocolaptide 
is undertaken again, the position of Sit¢osomus will have to be reconsidered. In the 
meantime we retain the genus in the subfamily Dendrocolaptine, but separate it from 
the other genera under the following characters :— 
A. Rostrum debile ; nares aperte sed supra membrano marginate. 
SITTOSOMUS. 
Stttasomus, Swainson, Zool. Journ. iii. p. 3855 (1827) ; Scl. Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. xv. p. 118. 
Two species constitute this genus, whereof one (S. ertthacus) is restricted in its range 
to Eastern Brazil and thence southwards to the Argentine Republic. The other 
(S. olivaceus) also occurs in Brazil, but spreads northwards to the Mexican State of 
Vera Cruz. The leading characters of the genus have been already given under the 
subfamily. Mr. Sclater groups Sittosomus with Margarornis, distinguishing them by 
the greater stiffness of the rectrices of the former. The: shortness of the hallux of 
Sittosomus, compared with that of Margarornis, alone seems to us to indicate the 
radical distinctness of the two genera. 
1. Sittosomus olivaceus. 
Stitlasomus olivaceus, Wied, Beitr. ii. p. 1146"; Scl. & Salv. P. Z. S. 1869, p. 3537; Salv. P.Z.S. 
1870, p. 192°; Sumichrast, La Nat. v. p. 2474; Nutt. Pr. U.S. Nat. Mus. vi. p. 385° ; 
Boucard, P. Z. S. 1883, p. 450°; Ferrari-Perez, Pr. U. S. Nat. Mus. ix. p. 1567. 
Sittosomus olivaceus, Scl. Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. xv. p. 119%. 
* Antea, p. 146, 
