AVES PTEROPTOCHID^. 75 I 



Geographical Range. — Wooded parts of western Patagonia and south- 

 ern Chili as far north as Valdivia and Lake Nahuel Huapi ; the Island 

 of Chiloe and the Chonos Archipelago, and to about 50° S. Lat. 



Mr. Hatcher and his corps of assistants only encountered the Barking 

 Bird once during their travels ; this is the more easily understood when 

 we remember that most of their efforts were outside of the forest region 

 proper of Patagonia. This is one of the birds restricted by its economy 



Fig. 385. Hylactes tarnii, Ti9:2. Details of foot, natural size. 



to a forest life and while terrestrial in habit does not so far as known ever 

 leave the deeper woods, except where the undergrowth amounts to an 

 impenetrable obstacle ; in such localities they are said to affect the vicinity 

 of cultivated grounds and where the brush and q/ti/a grow on the banks 

 of rivers they are also found in the Andes of the south and west of the 

 Cordillera; but thus far no examples have been obtained from the eastern 

 portions of Patagonia. 



Mr. Peters found it in the vicinity of Lake Nahuel Huapi, where "it is 

 less retiring than ScelorcJiilus and does not frequent such dense thickets. 

 One's attention is generally attracted by the note, a loud, liquid chuckle, 

 and the bird is soon discovered running along the top of a fallen log or 

 hopping clumsily about the lower branches of the underbrush." (Bull. 

 M. C. Z. Ixv, No. 9, p. 313.) 



Darwin writes of it: "The P. Tarnii \s abundant in all parts of the Island 

 of Chiloe, where it is called by the native Indians, guid-gitid ; but by the 

 English sailors, the barking-bird. This latter name is very well applied, 

 for the noise it utters is precisely like the yelping of a small dog. When 

 a person is walking along a pathway within the forest, or on the sea- 

 beach, he will often be surprised to hear on a sudden, close by him, the 

 bark of iht gnid-gnid. He may often watch in vain in the thicket, whence 



