232 rOEMICAEILD^. 



species render it remarkable amongst the Formicariidse of Central America, though its 

 size is small. 



The type described by Lafresnaye ^ was said to have come from Pasto ; but we have 

 not seen specimens in recent collections from that country, though a little further 

 south in Western Ecuador it was found by Fraser at Esmeraldas, and by Stolzmann 

 at Chimbo^, and from this region it would seem to range uninterruptedly through 

 Western Colombia and the State of Panama to Costa Kica, and we have seen many 

 examples from both the last-named countries. 



Mr. Wood, who found it near the falls of the Truando river, says^ it was abundant 

 near the camp in the Cordilleras, running on the ground amongst bushes in damp and 

 marshy places, much resembling in its actions the Water-Thrush of the United States. 



g'. Plumas supranasales culrainis utrinque extensoe. 



FORMICARIUS. 



Formicarius, Boddaert, Tabl. PI. Enl. p. 44; Scl. Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. xv. p. 301. 



Formicarius is one of the most isolated genera of the family to which it belongs, so 

 much so that it is difficult to say to what genus or genera it is most nearly allied. It 

 has usually of late been compared with Phlogopsis, but the points of structure in 

 common are of slight importance, consisting, in Mr. Sclater's key of the genera of 

 Formicariinse, of size, the similarity of the bill in each, and in the plumage being 

 tinted with almost the same colours. The latter, however, are very differently arranged. 

 The points of difference are very obvious, Formicarius being a more thick-set form, with 

 much closer, more compact plumage, much shorter, less rounded tail, the supra-nasal 

 feathers shorter and closer, and extending further along the bill on either side of the 

 culmen ; the tarsi are long in both forms, but in Formicarius the covering scutella are 

 plainly seen, whereas the tarsus of Phlogopsis has a single shield both in front and 

 behind; the claws of the former are shorter and straighter than those of the latter. 



Seven species, of which one is of doubtful value, constitute this genus, and these are 

 distributed over nearly the whole of the forest-regions of Tropical America from 

 Southern Mexico to South Brazil. Four species occur within our limits, of which 

 F. moniliger of South Mexico and Guatemala is the only one that is endemic ; the 

 other three, which all belong to the southern section of our faima, extend their range 

 into the southern continent, one of them reaching Bolivia. 



The habits of the species oi Formicarius are strictly terrestrial ; but of their nests and 

 eggs nothing that we know of has been recorded. 



