242 The Naturalist in La Plata. 



tvidely separated and apparently unrelated, it would 

 be diflficult indeed to say which of their most 

 striking habits is the ancestral one. Many of the 

 smaller species live in trees or bushes, and in their 

 habits resemble tits, warblers, wrens, and other 

 kinds that subsist on small caterpillars, spiders, &c., 

 gleaned from the leaves and smaller twigs. The 

 Anumbius nests on trees, but feeds exclusively on 

 the ground in open places ; while other ground- 

 feeders seek their food among dead leaves in dense 

 gloomy forests. Ooryphistera resembles the lark 

 and pipit in its habits ; Oinclodes, the wagtail ; 

 Geobates a Saxicola ; Limnornis lives in reed beds 

 growing in the water ; Henicornis in reed beds 

 growing out of the water ; and many other ground 

 species exist concealed in the grass on dry plains ; 

 Homorus seeks its food by digging in the loose soil 

 and dead leaves about the roots of trees ; while Geo- 

 sitta, Furnarius, and Upercerthia obtain a livelihood 

 chiefly by probing in the soil. It would not be pos- 

 sible within the present limits to mention in detail 

 all the different modes of life of those species or 

 groups which do not possess the tree-creeping 

 habit ; after them comes a long_^array of genera in 

 which this habit is ingrained, and in which the 

 greatly modified feet and claws are suited to a 

 climbing existence. As these genera comprise the 

 largest half of the family, also the largest birds in 

 it, we might expect to find in the tree-creeping 

 the parental habit of the Dendrocolaptidse, and that 

 from these tropical forest groups have sprung the 

 widely-diverging thicket, ground, marsh, sea-beacb, 

 and rock-frequenting groups. It happens, however, 



