ROCKY MOUNTAIN ANTCATCHER. 167 
are the most slender, elongated, and arcuated, in company 
with the Turdus lineatus of Gmelin. 
The antcatchers may justly be enumerated amongst the 
benefactors of mankind, as they dwell in regions where the 
ants are so numerous, large, and voracious, that, without their 
agency, co-operating with that of the Myrmecophaga jubata, 
and a few other ant-eating quadrupeds, the produce of the 
soil would inevitably be destroyed in those fertile parts of the 
globe. The anthills of South America are often more than 
twenty feet in diameter, and many feet in height. These 
wonderful edifices are thronged with two-hundred-fold more 
inhabitants, and are proportionally far more numerous, than 
the small ones with which we are familiar. Breeding in vast 
numbers, and multiplying with great celerity and profusion, 
the increase of these insects would soon enable them to swarm 
over the greatest extent of country, were not their propaga- 
tion and diffusion limited by the active exertions of that part 
of the animal creation which continually subsist by their de- 
struction. 
The anteatchers run rapidly on the ground, alighting but 
seldom on trees, and then on the lowest branches ; they gene- 
rally associate in small flocks, feed exclusively on insects, and 
most commonly frequent the large anthills before mentioned. 
Several different species of these birds are often observed to 
live in perfect harmony on the same mound, which, as it sup- 
plies an abundance of food for all, removes one of the causes 
of discord which is most universally operative throughout 
animated nature. On the same principle, we might explain 
the comparative mildness of herbivorous animals, as well as 
the ferocity and solitary habits of carnivorous, and particularly 
of rapacious animals, which repulse all others from their 
society, and forbid even their own kind to approach the limits 
of their sanguinary domain. 
The antcatchers never soar high in the air, nor do they ex- 
tend their flight to any great distance without alighting to 
rest, in consequence of the shortness of their wings and tail, 
