270 
ROCKY MOUNTAIN ANTCATCHER. 
they live in the dense and remote parts of forests, far from the 
abodes of man and civilisation. They also dislike open and wet 
countries. 
The note of the antcatchers is as various as the species are 
different ; but it is always very remarkable and peculiar. Their 
flesh is oily and disagreeable to the taste ; and, when the bird 
is opened, a very offensive odour is diffused, from the remains of 
half-digested ants and other insects, contained in the stomach. 
The plumage of the antcatchers very probably undergoes 
considerable changes in colour. The size of the sexes is dif- 
ferent, the female being much larger than the male. Such 
variations may have induced naturalists to consider many as 
species, that really do not exist, as such, in nature. 
The nest of these birds is hemispherical, varying in magni- 
tude according to the size of the species, composed of dried 
grass, rudely interwoven ; it is fixed to small trees, or attached 
by each side to a branch, at the distance of two or three feet 
from the ground. The eggs are nearly round, and three or 
four in number. 
The discovery of any species of this genus in the old world 
is quite recent, and it had previously been believed, that the 
genus was peculiar to South America ; and though the exist- 
ence of ant-destroying birds was suspected in other tropical 
regions, they were supposed to be generically distinct from 
those of the corresponding parts of America, as was known to 
be the fact in the case of the ant-eating quadrupeds. This 
opinion was founded on the admitted axiom, that nature always 
varies her groups in remote tropical regions having no com- 
munication with each other. The reverse, however, is the fact, 
in the case of the ant-catching birds, as we find perfect analo- 
gies between the species residing in those distant parts of the 
globe, even throughout the different sections into which the 
genus may be divided. 
The rocky mountain antcatcher is six inches long. The bill, 
measured from the corner of the mouth, is more than one inch 
in length, being slightly curved almost from the base ; it is very 
