MYIOTHERA OBSOLETA. 



KOCKY MOUNTAIN ANTCATCHER. 



[Plate I. Fig. 2.] 



Troglodytes obsoleta, Sat, in Long's Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, vol. ii., p. 4, 



This bird is one of those beings wliich seem created to puzzle the 

 naturalist, and convince him that nature will never conform to his 

 systems, however perfect his ingenuity may be capable of devising them. 

 This will become sufficiently apparent, when we consider in what manner 

 different authors would have arranged it. 



We cannot positively decide whether Vieillot and his followers would 

 have referred this species to Myrmothera, a name they have substituted 

 for Myiothera ; to their genus Thryothorus, which we unite to Troglo- 

 dytes ; or to their slender-billed section of Tamnoplnlus, rejected by us 

 from that genus, and of which some recent authors have made a genus 

 called Formicivora ; yet we have very little hesitation in stating our 

 belief, that they would have assigned its place among the species of the 

 latter. According to our classification, it is certainly not a Tamno- 

 philus, as we adopt the genus, agreeably to the characters given by 

 Temminck, who, not admitting the genus Troglodytes, would undoubtedly 

 have arranged this bird with Myiothera, as Illiger would also have done. 



The only point, therefore, to be established by us, is whether this 

 bird is a Myiothera or a Troglodytes. It is, in fact, a link intermediate 

 to both. After a careful examination of its form, especially the unequal 

 length of the mandibles, the notch of the superior mandible, and the 

 length of the tarsus ; and, after a due consideration of the little that is 

 known relative to its habits, we unhesitatingly place it with Myiothera, 

 though in consequence of its having the bill more slender, long, and 

 arcuated than that of any other species I have seen, it must occupy 

 the last station in the genus, being still more closely allied to Troglo- 

 dytes, than those species Avhose great aflfinity to that genus has been 

 pointed out by Cuvier. This may be easily ascertained, by comparing 

 the annexed representation with the figures given by Buffon and Tem- 

 minck. The figure which our llocky Mountain Antcatcher resembles 

 most, is Buffon's PI. Enl. 823, fig. 1 {Myiothera lineata). Tlie colors 

 of our bird are also similar to those of a Wren, but this similitude is 

 likewise observed in other Myiotherce. 



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