542 PERCHING BIRDS. 



building if one be near, or, if at the roadside, looking towards the road. When the 

 structure has assumed the globular form, with only a narrow opening, the wall on 

 one side is curved inwards, reaching from the floor to the dome, and at the inner 

 extremity an aperture is left to admit the bird to the interior, or second chamber, 

 in which the eggs are laid. The interior is lined with dry and soft grass, upon 

 which five white pear-shaped eggs are laid. The oven is a foot or more in diameter, 

 and is sometimes very massive, weighing eight or nine lbs., and so strong that, 

 unless loosened by the swaying of the branch, it often remains unharmed for two 

 or three years. The birds incubate by turns, and when one returns from the 

 feeding-grounds, it sings its loud notes, on which the sitting bird rushes forth to 

 join in the chorus, and then flies away, the other taking its place on the eggs. The 

 young are exceedingly garrulous, and when only half -fledged may be heard practis- 

 ing trills and duets in their secure oven in shrill tremulous voices, which change to 

 the usual hunger-cries of young birds when the parent enters with food. After 

 leaving the nest, the old and young birds live for two or three months together, 

 only one brood being raised in each year. A new oven is built every year, and 

 occasionally a second may be built on the top of the first, when this has been placed 

 advantageously, as on a projection and against a wall. A somewhat curious cir- 

 cumstance occurred at the estancia house of a neighbour of Mr. Hudson at Buenos 

 Aires one spring. " A pair of oven-birds built their oven on a beam-end projecting 

 from the wall of a rancho. One morning one of the birds was found caught in a 

 steel-trap placed the evening before for rats, and both of its legs were crushed 

 above the knee. On being liberated, it flew up to and entered the oven, where it 

 bled to death, no doubt, for it did not come out again. Its mate remained two or 

 three days, calling incessantly, but there were no other birds of its kind in the 

 place, and it eventually disappeared. Three days later it returned with a new 

 mate, and immediately the two birds began carrying pellets of mud to the oven, 

 with which they plastered up the entrance. Afterwards they built a second oven, 

 using the sepulchre of the dead bird for its foundation, and here they reared their 

 young. My neighbour, an old native, had watched the birds from the time the 

 first oven was begun, feeling greatly interested in their diligent ways, and thinking 

 their presence at his house a good omen ; and it was not strange that, after witnessing 

 the entombment of one that died, he was more convinced than ever that the little 

 housebuilders are pious birds." The plumage of this oven-bird is earthy brown 

 above, with a slight reddish tinge ; the breast and flanks are pale sandy brown ; 

 the upper tail-coverts and tail are bright reddish brown. There is no difference in 

 the colour of the sexes. 



The spine-tails possess a short straight bill, laterally com- 

 Spine-Tails. L l . 



pressed ; the wings are very short and much rounded, with the 



primaries scarcely exceeding the inner secondaries ; the tail is broad, with the 

 shafts rather rigid, and the tips are pointed ; while the feet are very large and 

 furnished with slender claws. The white-throated spine-tail, like its congener the 

 brown-fronted species (Synallaxis frontalis), is a native of the Argentine Republic, 

 and Mr. Hudson says is a summer visitant to Buenos Aires ; its arrival in spring- 

 being easily recognised by the utterance of its harsh persistent note, which is 

 remarkably strong for so small a bird, reiterated for half an hour at a time with 



