ROCKY MOUNTAIN ANTCATCHER. 165 
lowers would have referred this species to Myrmothera, a name 
they have substituted for MZyiothera ; to their genus Thryotho- 
rus, Which we unite to T’roglodytes ; or to their slender-billed 
section of Thamnophilus, rejected by us from that genus, and 
of which some recent authors have made a genus called For- 
micivora : yet we have very little hesitation in stating our 
belief that they would have assigned its place among the spe- 
cies of the latter. According to our classification, it is certainly 
not a Thamnophilus, as we adopt the genus, agreeably to the 
characters given by Temminck, who, not admitting the genus 
Troglodytes, would undoubtedly have arranged this bird with 
Myiothera, as Wliger would also have done. 
The only point, therefore, to be established by us is, whether 
this bird is a Myiothera or a Troglodytes. It is, in fact, a link 
intermediate to both. After a careful examination of its form, 
especially the unequal length of the mandibles, the notch of 
the superior mandible, and the length of the tarsus, and after 
a due consideration of the little that is known relative to its 
habits, we unhesitatingly place it with Wyiothera, though, in 
consequence of its having the bill more slender, long, and 
arcuated than that of any other species I have seen, it must 
occupy the last station in the genus, being still more closely 
allied to Troglodytes than those species whose great affinity 
to that genus has been pointed out by Cuvier. ‘This may be » 
easily ascertained by comparing the annexed representation 
with the figures given by Buffon and Temminck. ‘The figure 
which our Rocky Mountain antcatcher resembles most is Buf- 
fon’s Pl. Enl. 823, fig. 1 (yiothera lineata). The colours of 
our bird are also similar to those of a wren; but this simi- 
litude is likewise observed in other Myiothere. 
The bird now before us was brought from the Arkansaw 
river, in the neighbourhood of the Rocky Mountains, by Major 
Long’s exploring party, and was described by Say under the 
name of Troglodytes obsoleta, from its close resemblance to the 
. Carolina wren (T'roglodytes Ludovictanus), which Wilson con- 
sidered a Certhia, and Vieillot a Thryothorus. 
