828 PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS: ZOOLOGY. 



E. W. White writes of this species in Argentina : " This bird is abundant 

 at this season of the year [August] in low-lying swampy pastures, where 

 the grass is high. Upon being disturbed they start up high into the air, 

 very much like an English lark, singing all the while very prettily, and 

 remain poised on the wing. On the approach of a foot-passenger they 

 crouch close to the ground, allowing the foot almost to tread upon them ; 

 and as they are of its exact colour, they are difficult to see. This habit leads 

 the observant country urchins to compass the destruction of these poor 

 birds, which they do by breaking off a piece of fencing wire, about a yard 

 and a half long, turning it up at the ends, seizing it by one extremity, whirl- 

 ing it round their heads, all the while approaching the feathered songsters, 

 and then suddenly launching the chain shot, which rarely misses its 

 errand." (P. Z. S. p. 594, 1882.) 



Mr. Peters found this species "a very common summer resident in 

 western Rio Negro. . . . They inhabited the sandy valleys, especially 

 those watered by the arroyos. From the day of their arrival they were 

 singing constantly . . . — teti-cents apie' ce, c/irrr, feu-cents apie'ce, chrrr. 

 It is always a flight song, the bird ascending possibly fifty yards into the 

 air, the words being uttered while flying, and the chrry while descending 

 on set wings. Then there is a recovery and a repetition." They breed 

 in November. (Bull. M. C. Z. Ixv. No. 9, p. 329.) 



In Uruguay O. V. Alpin says: "This is one of the commonest birds, 

 and, from its habit of frequenting the barest and most open parts of the 

 campo, is known to some English residents as the 'Camp-bird.' They 

 prefer the high-lying parts of the camp and breed in the open. The nest 

 is usually in some slight depression — a hoof-mark for instance — and is not 

 infrequently discovered by your horse nearly putting his foot on it. In 

 this way a nest formed of soft grass and lined with fine grass was found in 

 a hoof-mark on November 13th. It contained four fresh eggs; the eggs 

 are white, with a faint bluish shade, sparingly speckled all over with grey 

 and pale brown, mostly so near the large end in some cases. In one ^<g<g 

 at the large end are two or three hair-like marks, nearly black. Another 

 nest, on the 17th, with one ^<g^, was placed against the stems of a low 

 plant of niio-mio — that poisonous deep green plant which always flourishes 

 in times of drought, when everything else is withering up. This nest had 

 an addition to the lining in the shape of a little coarse cow-hair. This 

 bird, like all the others of this family with which I am acquainted, has 



