Mail 1891.] BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH. 85 



guan, a little smaller than a pheasant, a characteristic inhabitant 

 of the monte. One of the most characteristic of all the animal 

 sounds of the Chaco is tlie voice of the charata. The morning- 

 silence is suddenly broken by a cry of extraordinary harshness, a 

 sort of very loud rattle resembling the syllables 'cha-ca-ra-ta.' 

 This is immediately answered by other birds at a little distance, 

 then all unite together, producing a most extraordinary din. These 

 concerts are heard most frequently during the morning, but occasion- 

 ally also during the night and day at other times. One of the 

 most characteristic family of birds inhabitating the monte as well 

 as the palmar, is that of the woodpeckers. Wherever one happens 

 to be, one has merely to stop and listen, and he is almost certain, in 

 one direction or another, to hear the steady tap tap indicative of 

 the ' carpintero,' and the carpintero attract attention not more by 

 their numbers than by their interesting habits and wonderful 

 plumage. They vary immensely in size, from Boies Avoodpecker, 

 a giant whose plumage is black, with a creamy buff tippet and 

 gorgeous pointed scarlet cowl, down to a tiny unknown little 

 bigger than a humming bird. In colour, too, they vary greatly, and 

 their coloration appears to be of remarkable interest. I have up 

 to the present encountered, I believe, a dozen species, of which five 

 or six are additional to the known Argentine fauna. In the monte 

 one's attention is drawn by another family, in habits very similar 

 to the last, but differing greatly in every other respect, that, of the 

 dendrocolaptids, one of the most characteristic families of South 

 American birds. One scarcely conies across a single large dicoty- 

 ledonous tree which has not one of these curious brown birds 

 hopping in a spiral line up their trunk, probing with its beak 

 into every crevice in search of insects. Two of these wood- 

 hewers are very abundant, Xijjliocolajjtes major, Vieill., and what 

 I take to be Picolaptes angustirostris, Vieill., while a third species, 

 apparently also a Picolajdes, is remarkable for its most extraordinary 

 bill, which is slender, curved downwards like an ibis, and enormously 

 long, about as long as the whole body of the bird. Besides these 

 true Dendrocolaptinse, two other sections of the family are repre- 

 sented ; the Furnariin», by the common oven-bird {F. rufus, Gm.), 

 which was so common at Mate Grande, here less numerous, how- 

 ever ; and the Synallaxinee, by several spinetails, and a Phacel- 

 lodomus. Flying about amongst the low trees bordering the monte, 

 one may disturb a flock of some of the remarkable aberrant 

 Cuculidae, peculiar to America, The common and jay-like Gtdra 

 piririgna,Y\Q\\\., so common in the Pampas, is here equally abundant ; 

 but we find in addition two cu.rious crow-like cuckoos, two species 

 of the genus Grotupliaga, anatomically so interesting. The first of 

 these is C. ani, Linn., which is constantly to be met with in small 

 flocks amongst the bushes, uttering a characteristic clear, somewhat 

 curlew-like cry, as it flies oif. The other species I considered a 

 splendid find. I only met with it a short time ago, and had 



