222 BIRDS OF LA PLATA 



cardoon-bush or tussock itf scoops out a slight hollow 

 in the ground, and builds over this a dome of fine 

 dry grass, leaving a small aperture arched like the 

 door of a baker's oven. The bed is lined with dry 

 powdered horse-dung, and the eggs are five, bluntly 

 pointed and of a very pale buff colour. The interior 

 of the nest is so small that when the five young birds 

 are fledged they appear to be packed together very 

 closely, so that it is difficult to conceive how the 

 parent bird passes in and out. 



The nest is always very cunningly concealed, and 

 I have often spent days searching in a patch of 

 cardoon-bushes where the birds were breeding 

 without being able to find it* Something more will 

 be said about the nesting-habits of this species in 

 the account of the Carrion-hawk, Milvago chimango. 



WREN-LIKE SPINE-TAIL 



Synallaxis maluroides 



Above, front and middle of crown chestnut ; hind head, neck, and 

 back pale fulvous brown, thickly marked with longitudinal black shaft- 

 spots ; lores white ; wings blackish, the feathers edged with pale 

 ochraceous, the basal part of secondaries very pale brown, forming a 

 transverse bar ; tail pale chestnut-brown, the two middle feathers with 

 a broad black mark on the inner web ; beneath white, breast and flanks 

 washed with pale brown, and freckled with very small dark brown 

 spots ; under wing-coverts white ; length 6.1 inches. 



D'ORBIGNY discovered this small Spine-tail near 

 Buenos Ayres city, but did not record its habits. 

 Like the species just described it is abundant on the 



