FAMILY FORMICARIIDAE 24I 



eggs. Though we watched for half an hour the bird did not return. 

 The base of the nest was a thin bed of weathered leaves. On these a 

 thin-walled cup of fine dark-colored rootlets had been woven. The 

 elevation of the nest was a little over a meter from the ground. The 

 two eggs, with incubation begun, are pale, somewhat pinkish buff, 

 one slightly darker than the other. The large end in each is marked 

 heavily with chocolate and chocolate-brown blotches that form a cap. 

 Tiny dots and a few larger markings tending to gray or purple are 

 scattered sparingly over the rest of the surface. In form the eggs 

 are between elliptical and oval. They measure 31.3x23.5, and 

 32.2x23.0 mm. The cup of the nest had an inside diameter of ap- 

 proximately 90 mm. 



In eastern San Bias, country men called this bird the Merendero. 



The type specimen, one of the birds secured during a survey for 

 a ship canal through Darien, according to its label, was collected 

 by Arthur C. V. Schott (not William S. and Charles J. Wood, as 

 stated in the original description). Cassin, who referred to it as "the 

 most remarkable bird in the collection," named it in "honor of the 

 commanding officer of the expedition, Lieut. N. Michler, of the 

 U.S. Topographical Engineers." 



GRALLARICULA FLAVIROSTRIS (Sclater) : Ochraceous Pygmy 

 Ant-pitta, Ponchito Ocroso 



Grallaria flavirostris P. L. Sclater, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, pt. 24, April 26, 

 1858, p. 68. (Rio Napo, Ecuador.) 



Very small ; with short tail and long legs ; grayish brown above, 

 with yellow breast. 



Description. — Length 95-110 mm. Rictal bristles half as long as 

 bill. Adult (sexes alike), crown and hindneck grayish olive, with 

 forehead more or less dull rufous ; back, scapulars, and rump brownish 

 olive; upper tail coverts somewhat paler; wings and tail brownish; 

 outer web of outer feather of alula ochraceous-buff ; one or more of 

 the wing coverts tipped indistinctly with tawny or rufescent brown ; 

 lores ochraceous, with an indistinct black or dusky line in central area ; 

 eye-rings ochraceous ; rest of side of head mixed ochraceous and 

 dusky; chin, throat, malar region, upper breast, sides, and flanks, 

 tawny to ochraceous, the breast usually with a few indistinct edgings 

 of dull black ; feathers of lower foreneck white basally, this some- 

 times showing as a spot of white; abdomen and center of lower 

 breast white; under tail coverts pale buff; under wing coverts and 

 the carpal edge of the wing ochraceous; anterior under coverts, in 



