214 BULLETIN 133, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



and in the persistence with which they searched for food they sug- 

 gested the smaller members of the genus Dryohates, but frequented 

 ■denser cover than is usual in birds of that group. Usually they were 

 found working steadily along, tapping the limbs over which they 

 passed as if to test them. When food was discovered they worked 

 ■quietly and rapidly, hammering steadily without apparent attention 

 to their surroundings. When insects were abundant considerable 

 areas on dead trunks were denuded of bark before the bird had ex- 

 hausted possibilities and had moved to other feeding grounds. The 

 only note heard from them was a low chuh cJiuh. On September 20 

 one of these quiet little birds under the influence of spring began to 

 drum. The rattle produced was rather short and was made some- 

 what slowly, Avith a decrease in speed toward the end that produced 

 a drawling sound of little carrying power. 



The species was recorded as follows: Resistencia, Chaco, July 8 

 and 10, 1920; Las Palmas, Chaco, July 14 to 31; Riacho Pilaga, 

 Formosa, August 18 ; Formosa, Formosa, August 23 ; Puerto Pinasco, 

 Paraguay, September 1, 11, and 20. A female was taken at Resis- 

 tencia July 8 ; a male at Las Palmas, July 14, and a male at Kilometer 

 80, west of Puerto Pinasco, September 11. 



VENILIORNIS FRONTALIS (Cabanis) 



Cloroncrpes (Campias) fro)ita1is Cabanis, .Touni. fiir Ornith., 1883, p. 

 110. (Tucuman.) 



April IT, 1921, between 1,600 and 1,800 meters on the slopes of the 

 Sierra San Xavier above Tafi Viejo, Tucuman, several of these 

 woodpeckers were seen, and a female was taken. They worked 

 busily along limbs or small trunks, often in localities near the 

 ground where they were entirely concealed by dense vegetation, and 

 their presence was indicated merely by their low calls or their ham- 

 mering in search for food. 



VENILIORNIS SPILOGASTER (Wagler) 



Picus spilogaster Waglkr, Syst. Av., 1827, p. 33. (Brazil and Paraguay.) 

 An adult female was taken near San Vicente, Uruguay, on Janu- 

 ary 30, 1921, in heavy tree growth in a gulch on the side of the 

 Cerro Navarro. The bird was in such heavy cover that I should 

 not have found it save for its steady hammering on a dead limb. 

 Another was shot at Rio Negro, Uruguay, on February 15, as it 

 worked quietly through a lowland thicket near a small stream. 



Both specimens are in molt on the body. The first one taken 

 had the maxilla and tip of the mandible dull black; base of mandible 

 storm gray; iris bone brown; tarsus and toes dark-grayish olive; 

 claws dusky neutral gray. 



