74 BIRDS OF TIERKA DEL FUEGO 



Durnford says of it, in the Province of Buenos Ayres : — " One 

 can scarcely take a ride in the country here without being 

 aware, before having gone a great distance, of a small and active 

 bird which constantly keeps flitting just in front of your horse, 

 every now and then alighting on a clod of earth, but off again 

 before you have reached it. It lives on the ground, like our 

 familiar little Wheatear, and constantly flits its tail up and down ; 

 it also has a habit, like that bird, of sometimes taking short quick 

 runs and stopping as suddenly as it started." 



He records it uncommon in the Chupat Valley, and he did 

 not observe it on his expedition to the lakes. 



CINCLODES PATAGONICUS (Cxmelin) 



Motacilla patagonica, Gmelin, Systema Naturce, i, p. 957, 1788. 

 OpetiorhynchUS rupestris, KittUtz, Mem. I'Acad. St. Petersb., ], 



p. 188, pi. viii, 1831. 

 OpetiorhyncllUS patagOniCUS, Gould and Darwin, Voy. " Beagle," 



Birds, p. 67, 1841. 

 CinclodeS patagOniCUS, Sdater, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., xv, p. 22, 



1890. 



Habitat. — Patagonia, Chili, and Tierra del Fuego. 



S Rio McClelland Settlement, 19tli Dec, 1904. 

 Iris — brown ; bill and legs — dark brown. 



All previous expeditions appear to have met with this bird, 

 with the exception of Durnford and the French Mission to Cape 

 Horn. 



It is common on the sea shore where there are clifi*s : it 

 also frequents the banks of streams inland. It is possessed 

 of much originality of character, and is not likely to be over- 

 looked nor confused with any other bird in the island, although 

 very closely allied to the larger C. mgrifumosus of Northern 

 Chili and Southern Peru and the darker C. antarcticus of the 

 Falkland Islands. 



