254 BULLETIN 133, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



hopped silently among limbs and roots, its very quietness lending a 

 sense of mystery heightened by the dark shadows of its haunts. 



This individual, a female, is distinctly duller in color on the dorsal 

 surface than two specimens in the United States National Museum 

 marked Brazil without definite locality. It i^robably represents a 

 southern form, at present not recognized. Measurements of this 

 specimen are as follows: Wing, 63.7; tail, 45.5; exposed culmen, 17.4; 

 tarsus, 23.1 mm. 



PHLEOCRYPTES MELANOPS MELANOPS (Vieillot) 



Sylvia melanops Vieillot, Nouv. Diet. Hist. Nat., vol. 11, 1817, p. 232. 

 (Paraguay.) 



The present species, an inhabitant of fresh-water marshes, was 

 recorded as follows : Lavalle, Buenos Aires, October 28 to November 

 9, 1920 (three adult males, taken October 28, November 2 and 9, and 

 an adult female, October 29) ; Carhue, Buenos Aires, December 15 

 to 18 (adult male, shot December 15, two adult females, on December 

 16 and 18) ; Lazcano, Uruguay, February 7 and 8, 1921 (immature 

 female, taken February 7) ; Tunuyan, Mendoza, March 25 to 28 (two 

 females, secured March 26). The series of nine specimens taken, 

 compared with others from Chile and Patagonia, offers no con- 

 stant differences and, save for seasonal variation, is quite uniform 

 in color. Birds in fresh fall plumage are considerably browner than 

 others. As the breeding season comes on they become paler through 

 wear, so that birds secured in December are frequently almost white 

 on the breast. There is considerable variation in length of bill. 

 Phleocryptes Tnelano'ps schoenohaenus Cabanis and Heine-'' is darker 

 above and below and larger than true melanops. The generic name 

 has been usually emended to Phloeocryptes but was written Phleo- 

 cryptes originally. 



The North American, viewing Neotropical birds for the first 

 time, finds among them many striking similarities to birds from 

 his own land, among which the tracheophone Phleocryptes is as 

 striking as any, since in general appearance, notes, and haunt this 

 frequenter of cat-tail and rush-grown marshes is similar to the 

 oscinine long-billed marsh wren, a bird of an entirely different 

 group. As one approaches the rushes of some canadon in the east- 

 ern pampas, a small wrenlike bird may come near to hop about 

 excitedly among the rushes to the accompaniment of clicking notes 

 like those made by striking two pebbles together, and in a short 

 time half a dozen of these Phleocryptes may be gathered about. 

 Their alarm is soon over and it is not unusual to have them come 

 almost within reach to look about confidingly. Where the aquatic 



^Phleocryptes schoenohaenus Cabanis and Heine, Mus. Hein., pt. 2, 1859, p. 20. 

 (Lake Titicaca, Peru.) 



