SCYTALOPUS MAGELLANIC US 81 



to as far north as about a degree south of Valparaiso. It is 

 described and figured by Gould as Dendrodra7nus leucosternus, 

 apparently in ignorance of the work done by King. 



This was the first forest bird to attract my attention on 

 arrival from the open country to the north-eastward. 



No one can be many hours in the forest without remarking 

 its tapping on the tree trunks and its clicking " Tick" and 

 associating both with this little restless energetic bird. No 

 other pursues the tenour of its life so completely engrossed 

 in itself as to appear indifferent to all else. It does not seem 

 able to be idle a moment. If at work on a tree, it does not 

 notice a man thirty feet below observing it closely. It then 

 abandons the tree quite on impulse, dashing away recklessly, in 

 undulatory flight, " Ticking " on the wing, seemingly at hap- 

 hazard as to the direction it takes. On impulse, similarly, in 

 the course of its headlong career through the forest, it alights 

 on the trunk of another tree, and at once resumes its quest for 

 insects. Its habits are very much those of the Nuthatch 

 i^Sitta coesia.) 



Darwin found it " common in the forests of Chiloe, where, 

 differently from Oxyurus tu^inieri^ it might be seen running up 

 the trunks of the lofty forest trees." Its manners appeared 

 to him to resemble those of Certhia familiaris. He found 

 coleopterous insects in its stomach. 



Coleoptera and coleopterous larvae are its food. 



Family PTEROPTOCHID^. 

 SCYTALOPUS MAGELLANICUS (Gmelin) 



Magellanic "Warbler, Lathain, Synopsis Birds, ii, p. 464, 1783. 

 Motacilla magellanica, Gmelin, Systema Naturae, i, p. 979, 1788. 

 ScytalopUS fuSCUS, Jardine and Selby, Illusfr. Orn., iv, pi. xix, 1838. 

 PteroptOChUS albifrons, Landbech, Wiegm. Arch. f. Naturg., p. 273, 

 1857. 



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