Todd-Carriker: Birds of Santa Marta Region, Colombia. 291 



monest bird on the paramos with the exception of Phrygilus unicolor 

 nivarius, being invariably found either among the low bushes and 

 shrubbery or in the great heaps of boulders so abundant in these areas. 

 In its general habits it much resembles the various species of Synal- 

 laxis. 



243. Leptoxyura cinnamomea fuscifrons (von Madarasz). 



Synallaxis cinnamomea (not Certhia cinnamomea Gmelin) Allen, Bull. Am. 



Mus. Nat. Hist., XIII, 1900, 158 (Cienaga). 

 Synallaxis fuscifrons von Madarasz, Orn. Monatsber., XXI, 1913, 22 



(Aracataca ; orig. descr. ; type in coll. Budapest Mus.; crit.). 



Twenty-seven specimens : Fundacion and Trojas de Cataca. 



In this species the rectrices are twelve in number, which at once 

 rules it out of Synallaxis, where it has been left by most recent authors. 

 Moreover, the wing is longer than the tail, and much rounded, the 

 secondaries being almost as long as the primaries, so that it can hardly 

 be referred to Acrorchilus. It seems less out of place in Siptornis, but 

 on the whole it seems best to recognize it as belonging to a distinct 

 genus, Leptoxyura Reichenbach. 



Dr. von Madarasz has very properly separated the form found in 

 Colombia and northern Venezuela from the typical Guiana bird, select- 

 ing as a type a specimen from our region collected by J. Ujhelyi. The 

 new form fuscifrons differs, as its name implies, in having the fore- 

 head brown like the lores, instead of uniform with the crown; the 

 upper parts, too, are more rufescent, less brownish, and the throat- 

 spot is brighter yellow. Young birds, of which there are several in 

 the present series, may be told by their pale under mandible, buffy suf- 

 fusion on the under parts, buffy white superciliaries, and extension of 

 the brown of the forehead over the pileum. 



An abundant bird in the marshes at Fundacion and in the inundated 

 shrubbery and tall grass along the lower course of the Aracataca 

 River. It frequents the thorny scrub and weeds growing in the marsh, 

 and evidently feeds entirely on various small forms of aquatic life. 

 The nest is characteristic of all the species of this group thus far ob- 

 served by the writer, at least in the shape and mode of its construction, 

 only the material used being different. It is a tunnel-shaped affair 

 from twelve to fifteen inches in length, widening out at the far end 

 to a diameter of about seven or eight inches, where the nest-cavity is 

 placed. The entire structure is built of thorny twigs interwoven in a 



