232 FORMICARIID. 
species render it remarkable amongst the Formicariide of Central America, though its 
size is small. 
The type described by Lafresnaye! was said to have come from Pasto; but we have 
not seen specimens in recent collections from that country, though a little further 
south in Western Ecuador it was found by Fraser at Esmeraldas, and by Stolzmann 
at Chimbo®%, and from this region it would seem to range uninterruptedly through 
Western Colombia and the State of Panama to Costa Rica, and we have seen many 
examples from both the last-named countries. 
Mr. Wood, who found it near the falls of the Truando river, says? it was abundant 
near the camp in the Cordilleras, running on the ground amongst bushes in damp and 
marshy places, much resembling in its actions the Water-Thrush of the United States. 
4 
2’, Plume supranasales culminis utringue extense. 
FORMICARIUS. 
Formicarius, Boddaert, Tabl. Pl. Enl. p. 44; Scl. Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. xv. p. 301. 
Formicarius is one of the most isolated genera of the family to which it belongs, so 
much so that it is difficult to say to what genus or genera it is most nearly allied. It 
has usually of late been compared with Phlogopsis, but the points of structure in 
common are of slight importance, consisting, in Mr. Sclater’s key of the genera of 
Formicariine, of size, the similarity of the bill in each, and in the plumage being 
tinted with almost the same colours. The latter, however, are very differently arranged. 
The points of difference are very obvious, Mormicarius being a more thick-set form, with 
much closer, more compact plumage, much shorter, less rounded tail, the supra-nasal 
feathers shorter and closer, and extending further along the bill on either side of the 
culmen ; the tarsi are long in both forms, but in Formicarius the covering scutella are 
plainly seen, whereas the tarsus of Phlogopsis has a single shield both in front and 
behind ; the claws of the former are shorter and straighter than those of the latter. 
Seven species, of which one is of doubtful value, constitute this genus, and these are 
distributed over nearly the whole of the forest-regions of Tropical America from 
Southern Mexico to South Brazil. Four species occur within our limits, of which 
F. moniliger of South Mexico and Guatemala is the only one that is endemic; the 
other three, which all belong to the southern section of our fauna, extend their range 
into the southern continent, one of them reaching Bolivia. 
The habits of the species of Hormicarius are strictly terrestrial; but of their nests and 
eges nothing that we know of has been recorded. 
