42 BIEDS OF TIERRA DEL FUEGO 



one's presence find suspicious of one's intentions, it neverthe- 

 less comes so close as almost to perch on one's person. At the 

 time of taking the picture of the swamp in the Sierra Carmen 

 Sylva, I was obliged to wait for nearly an hour for the light to 

 improve. Hardly was my camera in position when one of these 

 birds appeared in the bush in the immediate foreground, and 

 there remained, scolding incessantly for as long as I w^as there. 

 The song is short, but very cheery, and reminds one rather of 

 the Chaffinch {Fringilla coelehs) : I should define it on paper 

 as — " Cha-cha : chi-chi: chu-yiiy 



Darwin drew no distinction between T. hornensis and 

 T. furvus. Writing of both as T. magellanicus, procured 

 variously near Rio de Janeiro, on the banks of the La Plata, 

 in Chili, throughout Patagonia, and in Tierra del Fuego, he 

 says : — " Its habits resemble very closely those of the common 

 Troglodytes of England. In the open country, near Bahia 

 Blanca, it lived amongst the thickets and coarse herbage in the 

 valleys; in Tierra del Fuego, in the outskirts of the forest. 

 Its chirp is harsh." 



In the British Museum there is a specimen of this AYren 

 which was taken at sea, on board H.M.S. "Amethyst," one 

 hundred and forty miles N.W. of the Falkland Islands. 



I was never able to find a nest. At length, a woodcutter 

 brought me one with three eggs, which he had taken from a 

 hollow, in a stack of logs. The nest is a loose structure of 

 grasses and feathers, amongst which last are those of Gay's 

 Finch. The eggs are pinkish white, spotted with rusty 

 red above, pink below, the spots forming a ring round the 

 larger end. In the case of two, the markings are heavier than 

 in the third, the latter being more finely marked and paler. 

 They measure 0*65 by 0*5, 0'6 by 0*5, 0'65 by 0*5 inches. 



