234 BIRDS OF LA PLATA 
be strongly impressed witft its personality, if such a 
word can be applied to a bird. 
Dendrocolaptine birds are, as a rule, builders of 
big nests and very noisy; H. gutturalis is, I believe, 
the loudest screamer and greatest builder of the 
family. Male and female live together in the same 
locality all the year; the young, when able to fly, 
remain with their parents till the breeding-season, 
so that the birds are found occasionally in pairs, but 
more frequently in families of five or six individuals. 
When feeding they scatter about, each bird attaching 
itself to a large bush, scraping and prodding for 
insects about the roots; and at intervals one of the 
old birds, ascending a bush, summons the others 
with loud shrill cries, on which they all hurry to the 
place of meeting, and from the summits of the bushes 
burst forth in a piercing chorus, which sounds at a 
distance like screams of hysterical laughter. At one 
place where I spent some months, there were some 
bushes over a mile and a quarter from the house I 
lived in, where these birds used to hold frequent 
meetings, and in that still atmosphere I could dis- 
tinctly hear their extravagant cries at that distance. 
After each performance they pursue each other, 
passing from bush to bush with a wild jerky flight, 
and uttering harsh excited notes. 
They select a low, strong, wide-spreading bush to 
build in; the nest, which is made of stout sticks, is 
perfectly spherical and four to five feet deep, the 
chamber inside being very large. The opening is at 
the side,*near the top, and is approached by a narrow 
