100 
M YIOTHEK A OBSOLETA. 
characters of the bill, tail, and tarsus ; hut as we l 1 ' 1 ', 
onlv one species, it does not rest with us to m 9 ,, 
- - - - ... . 0 m 
divisions ; and we shall merely remark, that our obsob 
is referable to the last section, consisting' of those 
lulls are the most slender, elongated, and arcuated, 1 
company with the Turdus lineatus of Gmelin. 
The anteatchers may justly he enumerated amoiv. 
the benefactors of mankind, as they dwell in regkj 1 
■ oat I 
where the ants are so numerous, large, and voracio , 
that, without their agency, co-operating with that^ 
the Myrmecopliaga jubata, and a few other ant-i *' 
quadrupeds, the produce of the soil would inevit 
rftsl* 
TV 
he destroyed in those fertile parts of the globe. - ^ 
ant-hills of South America are often more than tw c ®j 
feet in diameter, and many feet in height. Tb. 
an V . 1S|P 
wonderful edifices are thronged with two hundred 1 . 
are proportionally far i' 1 ^, 
I rife 
more inhabitants, and 
numerous, than the small ones with which we 
familiar. Breeding in vast numbers, and multiple a . 
with great celerity and profusion, the increase of t‘ l ‘h 
insects would soon enable them to swarm over ' 
greatest extent of country, were not their propagfb j 
& ~~~ j, - r ”1 C 1 . -p 
and diffusion limited by the active exertions of that \ y 
of the animal creation, which continually subsist 
their destruction. , , 
The anteatchers run rapidly on the ground, aliglk'J 
but seldom on trees, and then on the lowest bratifb j*| 
they generally associate in small flocks, feed exclusi'^j, 
on insects, and most commonly frequent the largp 9 > 
hills before mentioned. Several different speck 5 , 
. .. . - 
these birds are often observed to live in perfect hai' D1 “ 1 
on the same mound, which, as it supplies an abiin^i 
of food for all, removes one of the causes of dk‘- 
which is most universally operative throughout 
mated nature. On the same principle, we o' Jf. 
explain the comparative mildness of herbivorous ank 1 ^ 
as well as the ferocity and solitaiy habits of carni' <k ,,|l 
and particularly of rapacious animals, which rep lJ k‘ , v >i 
others from their society, and forbid even their m, 
kind to approach the limits of their sanguinary ‘ 
