Seen and Lost. 369 



another bird seen and lost, also remarkable for its 

 diminutive size. For years 1 looked for it, and 

 when the wished-for opportunity came, and it was 

 in my power to secure it, I refrained ; and Fate 

 punished me by never permitting me to see it again. 

 On several occasions while riding on the pampas I 

 had caught glimpses of this minute bird flitting up 

 mothlike, with uncertain tremulous flight, and again 

 dipping into the weeds, tall grass, or thistles. Its 

 . plumage was yellowish in hue, like sere dead herb- 

 age, and its extremely slender body looked longer 

 and slimmer than it was, owing to the great length 

 of its tail, or of the two middle tail-feathers. I 

 knew that it was a Synallaxis — a genus of small 

 birds of the Woodhewer family. Now, as I have 

 said in a former chapter, these are wise little birds, 

 more interesting — I had almost said more beautiful 

 — in their wisdom, or wisdom-simulating instincts, 

 than the quatzel in its resplendent green, or the 

 cock-of-the-rock in its vivid scarlet and orange 

 mantle. "Wrens and mocking-birds have melody 

 for their chief attraction, and the name of each 

 kind is, to our minds, also the name of a certain 

 kind of sweet music; we think of swifts and 

 swallows in connection with the mysterious migra- 

 tory instinct ; and humming-birds have a glittering 

 mantle, and the miraculous motions necessary to 

 display its ever-changing iridescent beauty. In 

 like manner, the homely Dendrocolaptidse possess 

 the genius for building, and an account of one of 

 these small birds without its nest would be like a 

 biography of Sir Christopher "Wren that made no 

 mention of his works. It was not strange then, 



