Volume I Part 35 (2/2)

The bird is so abundant in extensive marshes that I have on several occasions, during a day's ramble, found as many as forty or fifty nests, sometimes a dozen or more being placed close together, but I have never taken more than three eggs from one nest. I mention this because I have seen it stated that four or five eggs are sometimes found.

I trust that no reader of this sketch imagines that I robbed all the eggs contained in so many nests. I did nothing so barbarous, although it is perhaps ”prattling out of fas.h.i.+on” to say so; but with the destructive, useless egg-collecting pa.s.sion I have no sympathy. By bending the pliant rushes downwards the eggs can be made to roll out into the hand; and all those which I thus took out to count were, I am glad to say, put back in their wonderful cradles. I had a special object in examining so many nests. A gaucho boy once brought me a nest which had a small circular _stopper_, made of the same texture as the body of the nest, attached to the aperture at the _side_, and when swung round into it fitting it as perfectly as the lid of the trap-door spider fits the burrow. I have no doubt that it was used to close the nest when the bird was away, perhaps to prevent the intrusion of reed-frogs or of other small birds; but I have never found another nest like it, nor have I heard of one being found by any one else; and that one nest, with its perfectly-fitting stopper, has been a puzzle to my mind ever since I saw it.

189. LEPTASTHENURA aeGITHALOIDES (Kittl.).

(t.i.t-LIKE SPINE-TAIL.)

+Synallaxis aegithaloides+, _Burm. La-Plata Reise_, ii. p. 469 (Mendoza); _Hudson, P. Z. S._ 1872, p. 544 (Rio Negro).

+Leptasthenura aegithaloides+, _Scl. et Salv. P. Z. S._ 1869, p.

632 (Buenos Ayres); _iid. Nomencl._ p. 63; _Durnford, Ibis_, 1877, p. 180 (Buenos Ayres), et 1878, p. 396 (Centr. Patagonia); _Gibson, Ibis_, 1880, p. 30 (Buenos Ayres); _White, P. Z. S._ 1882, p. 611 (Catamarca); _Barrows, Bull. Nutt. Orn. Cl._ viii.

p. 206 (Entrerios).

_Description._--Above pale earthy brown; crown black, striped with clear brown; lores, sides of head, and throat white, with minute black spots; wings blackish, the edges of the outer webs of the primaries and the basal part of the secondaries light rufescent brown; tail black, lateral rectrices tipped and margined with pale grey; beneath pale grey, throat white; bill and feet horn-colour: whole length 62 inches, wing 24, tail 35. _Female_ similar.

_Hab._ Chili, Argentina, and Patagonia.

This is a restless little bird, seen singly or in parties of three or four. In manner and appearance it resembles the Long-tailed t.i.tmouse (_Parus_), as it diligently searches for small insects in the trees and bushes, frequently hanging head downwards to explore the under surface of a leaf or twig, and while thus engaged continually uttering a little sharp querulous note. They are not migratory, but in winter seem to wander about from place to place a great deal; and in Patagonia, in the cold season, I have frequently seen them uniting in flocks of thirty or forty individuals, and a.s.sociating with numbers of Spine-tails of other species, chiefly with _Synallaxis sordida_, and all together advancing through the thicket, carefully exploring every bush in their way.

D'Orbigny says that it makes a nest of rootlets and moss in a bush; but where I have observed this bird it invariably breeds in a hole in a tree, or in the nest of some other bird, often in the clay structure of the Oven-bird. But in Patagonia, where the Oven-bird is not known, this Spine-tail almost always selects the nest of the _Synallaxis sordida_.

It carries in a great deal of soft material--soft gra.s.s, wool, and feathers--to reline the cavity, and lays five or six, white, pointed eggs.

190. LEPTASTHENURA FULIGINICEPS (d'Orb. et Lafr.).

(BROWN-CRESTED SPINE-TAIL.)

+Leptasthenura fuliginiceps+, _Scl. et Salv. Nomencl._ p. 63; _White, P. Z. S._ 1882, p. 611 (Catamarca). +Synallaxis fuliginiceps+, _Burm. La-Plata Reise_, ii. p. 469.

_Description._--Above pale earthy brown; forehead and slightly crested crown rufous brown; wings blackish, edges of outer webs of all the wing-feathers and basal part of the secondaries chestnut; tail clear brown; beneath paler, earthy brown; bill and feet horn-colour: whole length 60 inches, wing 22, tail 31.

_Hab._ Bolivia and N. Argentina.

This species, discovered by d'Orbigny in Bolivia, was met with by White in Catamarca, ”on the slopes of the hills, outside the dense wood,” and by Prof. Burmeister near Parana.

191. SYNALLAXIS FRONTALIS, Pelz.

(BROWN-FRONTED SPINE-TAIL.)

+Synallaxis frontalis+, _Scl. et Salv. Nomencl._ p. 63; _Scl. P. Z.

S._ 1874, p. 8; _Salvin, Ibis_, 1880, p. 358 (Salta); _White, P.

Z. S._ 1882, p. 611 (Salta, Catamarca). +Synallaxis ruficapilla+, _d'Orb. Voy., Ois._ p. 246 (Corrientes); _Burm. La-Plata Reise_, ii. p. 408 (Parana).

_Description._--Above, earthy brown; cap chestnut; front earthy brown; wing-coverts chestnut, wing-feathers olive-brown, the outer webs edged with chestnut; tail chestnut; beneath, throat blackish, with slight whitish mottlings; breast, sides, and under tail-coverts pale earthy brown, belly brownish white; under wing-coverts fulvous; bill and feet horn-colour: whole length 56 inches, wing 22, tail 30.

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