100 
MYIOTHERA OBSOLETA. 
characters of the bill, tail, and tarsus ; but as we have 
only one species, it does not rest with us to make 
divisions ; and we shall merely remark, that our obsoleta 
is referable to the last section, consisting* of those whose 
bills 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 
ant-hills 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 propagation 
and diffusion limited by the active exertions of that part 
of the animal creation, w hich continually subsist by 
their destruction. 
The antcatchers run rapidly on the ground, alighting 
but seldom on trees, and then on the low r est branches ; 
they generally associate in small flocks, feed exclusively 
on insects, and most commonly frequent the large ant- 
hills before mentioned. Several different species of 
these birds are often observed to live in perfect harmony 
on the same mound, w hich, as it supplies an abundance 
of food for all, removes one of the causes of discord 
which is most universally operative throughout ani- 
mated 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. 
