98 
MYIOTHERA OBSOLETA. 
will never conform to his systems, however perfect his 
ingenuity may be capable of devising them. This will 
become sufficiently apparent, when we consider in what 
manner different authors would have arranged it. 
We cannot positively decide whether Vieillot and his 
followers would have referred this species to Myr- 
mothera , a name they have substituted for Myiothera ; 
to their genus Thryothorus , which we unite to 
Troglodytes i or to their slender billed section of 
Tamnophilus, rejected by us from that genus, and of 
which some recent authors have made a genus called 
Formicivora ; yet we have very little hesitation in 
stating our belief, that they would have assigned its 
place among the species of the latter. According to 
our classification, it is certainly not a Tamnophilus , as 
we adopt the genus, agreeably to the characters given 
by Temmi nek, who, not admitting the genus Troglodytes , 
would undoubtedly have arranged this bird with Myio- 
thera , as Illiger 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 conside- 
ration of the little that is known relative to its habits, 
we unhesitatingly place it with Myiothera , 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. The figure which our rocky mountain 
antcatcher resembles most, is Buffon’s PI. Enl. 823, fig. 
1, ( Myiothera lineata .) The colours of our bird are 
also similar to those of a wren ; but this similitude is 
likewise observed in other Myiotherce. 
This bird was brought from the Arkansaw river, in 
the neighbourhood of the Pocky Mountains, by Major 
Long’s exploring party, and was described by Say 
