1871.] LETTER FROM MR. W. H. HUDSON. 259 



described in my last letter, we have in this country five species of 

 Laridee ; hut at present I will pass these over, and defer my de- 

 scriptions of them until I shall have increased the rather scanty 

 stock of facts I possess in reference to their habits. 



" I have just become acquainted with a bird never before, I think, 

 obtained in this region — the Upucerthia dumetoria. A pair of these 

 birds (male and female) appeared in a field near my house this 

 winter ; and a month after first seeing them I succeeded in shooting 

 both. The male proved to be a trifle the larger ; but in plumage 

 they were alike. They reminded me in all their motions of the 

 Cinclndes fuscus, being, like it, shy and ever ready to take wing, 

 and their flight being irregular, rapid, and near to the earth. The 

 bird also sometimes alights on dry stalks, but more ofteu on the 

 ground, hopping and jerking the tail in a startled manner, and run- 

 ning with extraordinary swiftness over the bare places. These birds 

 were probably winter visitants from Patagonia ; but that they re- 

 gularly migrate so far north is doubtful. The species has been con- 

 sidered, I think, an inhabitant of the Andean regions exclusively ; 

 but I have seen one skin obtained on the Atlantic sea-board, in the 

 southern part of this province. 



" "We have already many indications of approaching spring ; and 

 I regret to find that I have not been able to give so much attention 

 to the habits of our winter species as I had intended to do, or to 

 write so many letters as I had hoped. Before many days the cold 

 season will have gone, and with it the birds that annually visit 

 us from the barren tablelands of Patagonia. When I reflect how 

 few species there are in this sombre-plumaged train, compared 

 with the multitude that come to us in summer wearing the gay 

 livery of the tropics, I am forced to think that Patagonia must indeed 

 be poor in species. Yet in the interior of that country there is a 

 fertile region, abounding in forests, and watered by a great river and 

 its tributary streams. Whatever birds inhabit such a region cer- 

 tainly do not visit us, all our winter visitants, except two of the 

 Hawks, being lovers of open bare plains, and alighting almost exclu- 

 sively on the ground. It is not, however, impossible that in those 

 districts of Patagonia adapted to the habits of Passerine birds many 

 resident species may exist. Most anxiously do I wait an opportunity 

 of learning something from observation of the ornithology of that 

 country. 



" I will now furnish you with a short sketch of our winter birds 

 and their movements. 



"The Osquita {Centrites nir/er) and the Cinclodes fuscus are the 

 earliest to appear — the former on bare places, the latter on the mar- 

 gins of streams. Both are very common and found widely distri- 

 buted. Very interesting in appearance is the silent little Osquita, 

 the bright rufous on its back contrasting prettily with its other 

 colour, the bill, feet, and plumage being intensely black, as if dyed 

 in Indian ink ; the inside of the bill and tongue is bright yellow. 

 When they first appear the young males have almost as [tale an ashy 



