180 DENDKOCOLAPTID^l. 



Description. Above, forehead grey, crown -pale chestnut; sides of head and 

 neck, back, and tail pale earthy brown ; upper wing-coverts pale chestnut, 

 wing-feathers olive-brown ; beneath white, faintly washed with earthy brown ; 

 under wing-coverts fulvous : whole length 5-3 inches, wing 2-0, tail 2-2. 



Hob. S. America, from Veragua to Buenos Ayres. 



This species, although by no means abundant in Buenos Ayres, is 

 met with much more frequently than the S. spixi, which it closely re- 

 sembles in size, colour, habits, and language. It is, indeed, an unusual 

 thing for two species so closely allied to be found inhabiting the same 

 district. In both birds the colours are arranged in precisely the same 

 way; but the chestnut tint on S. allescens is not nearly so deep, the 

 browns and greys are paler, and there is less black on the throat. 



I am pretty sure that in Buenos Ayres it is migratory, and as soon 

 as it appears in spring it announces its arrival by its harsh, persis- 

 tent, two-syllabled note, wonderfully strong for so small a bird, and 

 which it repeats at intervals of two or three seconds for half an hour 

 without intermission. When close at hand it is quite as distressing as 

 the grinding noise of a Cicada. This painful noise is uttered while the 

 bird sits concealed amid the foliage of a tree, and is renewed at frequent 

 intervals, and continues every day until the Spine-tail finds a mate, 

 when all at once it becomes silent. The nest is placed in a low thorn- 

 bush, sometimes only two or three feet above the ground, and is an 

 oblong structure of sticks, twelve or fourteen inches in depth, with the 

 entrance near the top, and reached by a tubular passage made of slender 

 sticks, and six or seven inches long. From the top of the nest a 

 crooked passage leads to the cavity near the bottom ; this is lined with 

 a little fine grass, and nine eggs are laid, pear-shaped and pale bluish 

 white in colour. I have found several nests with nine eggs, and there- 

 fore set that down as the full number of the clutch, though I confess it 

 seems very surprising that this bird should lay so many. When the 

 nest is approached, the parent birds remain silent and concealed at 

 some distance. When the nest is touched or shaken, the young birds, 

 if nearly fledged, have the singular habit of running out and jumping 

 to the ground to conceal themselves in the grass. 



I have no doubt that this species varies greatly in its habits in 

 different districts, and probably also in the number of eggs it lays. 

 Mr. Barrows, an excellent observer, says it lays three or four light blue 

 eggs. He met with it at Concepcion, in the northern part of the 

 Argentine Republic, and writes that it is " an abundant species in thorny 

 hedges or among the masses of dwarfed and spiny bushes, which cling 

 to each other so tenaciously amid the general desolation of the sandy 

 barrens." The nests which he describes vary also in some particulars 



