205 



four species — ThamnophUi melanurus and doliattu, Formicaritu 

 mortiliger, and Grrallaria guatimalenris. They arc numerous iu the 

 interior of New Granada, and most abundant in the great valley of 

 the Amazon, particularly in the region traversed by the upper con- 

 fluent-, of the neat stream. A collection of birds from the Itio 

 Napo (which 1 lately had the pleasure of bringing before the notice 

 of this Society*) contained upwards of thirty species of these birds 

 from this single locality. They extend all over the interior of Peru 

 and Bolivia — rarely ascending the slopes of the Andean range above 

 5000 feet, the limit of D'Orbigny's lowest zone, and not observed 

 by him southward of 23° south lat. On the Atlantic coast, however, 

 they certainly go further south, as I have seen several species of 

 TkamnophUtu in collections from the Rio Grande do Sul (32° south 

 lat.) ; ami Mr. Darwinf procured specimens of a Thamnophiltu 

 which has been referred to Thamnophiltu doliatus, at Maldonado, in 

 the republic of Uruguay, nearly three degrees further south. On 

 the western side of the Andes they are only met with in the republics 

 of Ecuador and New Granada. Neither Tschudi in Peru nor D'Or- 

 bigny in Bolivia mentions their occurrence on the Pacific side of the 

 range. 



The principal particular accounts which have been written of the 

 American Formicarians are Mcnetries's "Monographic des Myio- 

 theics," in the first volume of the sixth series of 'Memoirs of the 

 Imperial Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg' (1835), and Caba- 

 nis's sketch of this family in his " Ornithologische Notizen," pub- 

 lished in Wiegman's ' Archiv fiir Naturgeschichte ' for 1844. The 

 first of these authors enumerates forty-five species of these birds 

 (excluding the species of the Old World and the Pteroptochidce) ; 

 the second does not enter at full length into the species, but only 

 gives a list of them in some particular genera. 



In 1855 I communicated a paper on the species of the genus 

 Thamnophiltu to the 'Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal,' New 

 Series. "With the exception of separating off the somewhat abnormal 

 species T. cineretu and T. lineattu, I have in the present synopsis 

 adhered pretty much to the arrangement there given. I have how- 

 ever thought it best to exclude from every part of the present sy- 

 stematic arrangement the species of which I have not myself examined 

 specimens, and to place them in an appendix. In so doing I need 

 hardly say I intend no disrespect to the authors who have described 

 these species ; but I merely wish to indicate that I have not been 

 fortunate enough to meet with specimens answering to their charac- 

 ters, although many of them, no doubt, are founded on existing 

 species. 



My own collection of these birds numbers about 223 specimens, 

 belonging to 112 species. The public collections to which I have 

 most frequently referred arc those of the British Museum, an. I 

 the Jardin des Plantcs at Paris, which both contain fine series of 



* Sec (l)il(n, |i. .v.». 



t Darwin, in Vny. ' Beagle.' Bird*, p, .'iS. 



