ANT-BIRDS. 477 



orthonyx, from Ecuador and the United States of Colombia, which " is readily known 

 by the extraordinary flat, oval shield into which the culnien is developed, and the long, 

 straight hind claw. Its ocellated plumage is likewise unique among the Passeres," 

 and reminds one forcibly of some small Gallinaceous birds. 



Darwin gives interesting accounts of several of the species. Of Jlylactes tarnli 

 he says that it is called by the native Indians guid-gidd, but by the English sailors 

 the barking-bird, a name very well applied, since the noise it utters is precisely like 

 the yelping of a small dog. It feeds exclusively on the ground, in the thickest and 

 most entangled parts of the forest, and rarely takes wing, but hops quickly and with 

 great vigor, carrying the short tail in a nearly erect position. H. meyapodius is 

 called by the Chilenians 'El Turco.' "Its appearance is very strange, arid almost 

 ludicrous, and the bird seems always anxious to hide itself. It does not run, but hops, 

 and can hardly be compelled to take flight. The various cries which it utters, when 

 concealed in the bushes, are as strange as its appearance." 



Apparently closely allied to the foregoing family, though with only two sternal 

 notches and normal passerine insertion of the tensor patagii brevis, is the taxaspidean 

 family FORMICARIID^E, a large and characteristic South American group of consid- 

 erably over two hundred species, which seems to be eminently natural. Mr. D'Orbigny 

 remarks as follows : " All the species of this family, independently of their being of 

 the same habits, have a fades which unites them together. Their most salient traits 

 are the long, slender tarsi and toes, the exterior toe united to the middle at its base, 

 the moderate claws, the fine elongated feathering of the rump, and, in particular, the 

 spots of white which occupy the base of the interscapularies in the wings of nearly 

 all the males." 



The present family is divisible in three groups, which have been termed sub- 

 families, viz., the ant-shrikes (Thamnophilinas), strongly-built birds, with a strong, deep 

 and compressed bill, hooked and toothed at the end, and a long, broad-feathered, 

 much-rounded tail, presenting a great resemblance to the genuine, oscinine shrikes. 

 The sexes are very differently colored, the males being varied with black and white, 

 the females with brown. The ant-wrens (F'ormicivorinae) are smaller and weaker, 

 with slenderer, scarcely hooked bill. The tail varies much, being in some genera very 

 long, and in others extremely short. Sexes as in the foregoing group, with but few 

 exceptions. The members of the third group are called ant-thrushes (Formicariinas), 

 and, except in regard to coloration, are very much like the pittas, having long tarsi, 

 large feet, a thrush-like bill, and an extremely short, square tail; and, like their Old 

 World relatives, their habits are entirely terrestrial. The sexes are usually colored 

 alike. These sub-families are not very trenchantly defined, intermediate forms occur- 

 ring all around; and Mr. Sclater, from whose synopsis of the present family the above 

 is mostly borrowed, freely admits that it is difficult to draw a precise line, and say 

 where one sub-family ought to end and the other to begin. 



It is entirely out of question to go into detail concerning the different genera or 

 species, or their habits individually, for they are not particularly attractive to the 

 general reader, and the habits, as far as they are known, seem to be rather uniform. 

 On the whole, they are birds of very retired manners of life, spending their time 

 amongst the densest and thorniest thickets. Curiously enough, nearly all of these non- 

 oscinine birds are said to possess voices of special ventriloqual power, though Mr. Sal- 

 mon, as will be seen from the following quotation of his account of the habits of 

 Grallaria ruficapilla, explains the omnipresence of the voice as the result of the bird's 



