Vol. XXIX1 



1912 



J Rhoads, Birds of the Paramo of Central Ecuador. 143 



upon a nearby bush. Both are shot, and as the brown one was 

 apparently singing, they are thought to be quite distinct, but later 

 experience shows them to be male and female. Now there crawls 

 up the stems of a taller tussock, in much the manner of a Seaside 

 Finch, a sharp-billed, spiny-tailed and streaked little bird, Siptornis 

 flammulata Jard., which looks a very hybrid in color and habits 

 between an Ammodramiis, a Wren, and a Bush-Tit. It belongs to 

 the great Wood-Hewer family, Dendrocolaptidae. These streaked 

 Sedge Creepers here took the place of their longer tailed cousins 

 Synallaxis of the bushes of the tierra templada, which had so long 

 wearied us with their tiresome "te-cheek, te-cheek," ever since 

 we had landed. They carried the range of this type almost up to 

 snow line from the upper edge of the hot country or " tierra caliente." 

 A few hundred yards, and we are fairly into the Paramo, survey- 

 ing complacently the tree tops, pastures and cultivated fields 

 below us without obstruction, save as the fickle vapors hide them 

 momentarily from view. Raising our eyes, the dim outline of the 

 snowy cone of Cotopaxi slow^ly focuses itself far, far away to the 

 south, high above the backbone of the Western Range. A thousand 

 rounded, intervening summits form its setting. Close by, a familiar 

 note suddenly reminds us of home; a Wren cry surely. Beating 

 about, we are rewarded by securing a specimen of the Andean 

 Marsh Wren, Cistothorus brmineiceps Salvin, which we had found 

 breeding in the Juncus bunches below Rosario at 10,000 feet, the 

 lower limit of its range. But we must turn our backs on trifles, 

 and, trudging now among the maze of cattle trails that intersect the 

 sedge, we become painfully aware of our great elevation and the 

 difficulty of following the steady pace of our native guide. Sud- 

 denly, along the edge of a dry ditch, a large Snipe-like bird, Galli- 

 nago 7wbilis (Sclater). flushes at our feet and disappears over the 

 nearest knoll. These are called "Woodcocks" by the English 

 inhabitants of Quito, who esteem them fine game. They do not 

 frequent marshy tracts and live almost entirely in the open, dry 

 Paramo plains among the tussock-grass. In the same places, where 

 the sedge grows dense and high, the peculiar. Grouse-like Tinamous 

 hide. When one of these strange, short tailed birds takes wing, 

 giving voice to its piercing, half whistling, half shrieking succession 

 of notes, one is reminded, amid the novel confusion, of a bobtailed 



