234 BIRDS OF LA PLATA 
be strongly impressed with its personality, if such a 
word can be applied to a bird. 
Dendrocolaptine birds are, as a rule, builders of 
big nests and very noisy; H. gutturalis is, I believe, 
the loudest screamer and greatest builder of the 
family. Male and female live together in the same 
locality all the year; the young, when able to fly, 
remain with their parents till the breeding-season, 
so that the birds are found occasionally in pairs, but 
more frequently in families of five or six individuals. 
When feeding they scatter about, each bird attaching 
itself to a large bush, scraping and prodding for 
insects about the roots; and at intervals one of the 
old birds, ascending a bush, summons the others 
with loud shrill cries, on which they all hurry to the 
place of meeting, and from the summits of the bushes 
burst forth in a piercing chorus, which sounds at a 
distance like screams of hysterical laughter. At one 
place where I spent some months, there were some 
bushes over a mile and a quarter from the house I 
lived in, where these birds used to hold frequent 
meetings, and in that still atmosphere I could dis- 
tinctly hear their extravagant cries at that distance. 
After each performance they pursue each other, 
passing from bush to bush with a wild jerky flight, 
and uttering harsh excited notes. 
They select a low, strong, wide-spreading bush to 
build in; the nest, which is made of stout sticks, is 
perfectly spherical and four to five feet deep, the 
chamber inside being very large. The opening is at 
the side, near the top, and is approached by a narrow 
