Volume I Part 36 (2/2)

I am pretty sure that in Buenos Ayres it is migratory, and as soon as it appears in spring it announces its arrival by its harsh, persistent, two-syllabled note, wonderfully strong for so small a bird, and which it repeats at intervals of two or three seconds for half an hour without intermission. When close at hand it is quite as distressing as the grinding noise of a Cicada. This painful noise is uttered while the bird sits concealed amid the foliage of a tree, and is renewed at frequent intervals, and continues every day until the Spine-tail finds a mate, when all at once it becomes silent. The nest is placed in a low thorn-bush, sometimes only two or three feet above the ground, and is an oblong structure of sticks, twelve or fourteen inches in depth, with the entrance near the top, and reached by a tubular pa.s.sage made of slender sticks, and six or seven inches long. From the top of the nest a crooked pa.s.sage leads to the cavity near the bottom; this is lined with a little fine gra.s.s, and nine eggs are laid, pear-shaped and pale bluish white in colour. I have found several nests with nine eggs, and therefore set that down as the full number of the clutch, though I confess it seems very surprising that this bird should lay so many. When the nest is approached, the parent birds remain silent and concealed at some distance. When the nest is touched or shaken, the young birds, if nearly fledged, have the singular habit of running out and jumping to the ground to conceal themselves in the gra.s.s.

I have no doubt that this species varies greatly in its habits in different districts, and probably also in the number of eggs it lays.

Mr. Barrows, an excellent observer, says it lays three or four light blue eggs. He met with it at Concepcion, in the northern part of the Argentine Republic, and writes that it is ”an abundant species in th.o.r.n.y hedges or among the ma.s.ses of dwarfed and spiny bushes, which cling to each other so tenaciously amid the general desolation of the sandy barrens.” The nests which he describes vary also in some particulars from those I have seen. ”Entrance is gained by the bird,” he says, ”through a long tube, which is built on to the nest at a point about half way up the side. This tube is formed by the interlocking of th.o.r.n.y twigs, and is supported by the branches and twigs about it. It may be straight or curved; its diameter externally varies from two to four inches, and its length from one to two feet. The pa.s.sage-way itself is but just large enough to admit the birds one at a time, and it has always been a mystery to me how a bird the size of a Chipping-Sparrow could find its way through one of these slender tubes, bristling with thorns, and along which I found it difficult to pa.s.s a smooth slender twig for more than five or six inches. Yet they not only pa.s.s in and out easily, but so easily that I was never yet able to surprise one in the nest, or to see the slightest disturbance of it by the bird's hurried exit.”

The bird has a very wide range in South America, and Mr. Salmon observed its breeding-habits in Antioquia in Colombia. There also the bird varies the form of its nest, making it as large as that of an English Magpie, and roofing the top with a ma.s.s of large leaves to protect it from the heavy rains. The eggs, he says, are very pale greenish blue, nearly white; but he does not give the number.

195. SYNALLAXIS WHITII, Scl.

(WHITE'S SPINE-TAIL.)

+Synallaxis whitii+, _Scl. Ibis_, 1881, p. 600, pl. xvii. fig. 2; _White, P. Z. S._ 1882, p. 611 (Salta).

_Description._--Above dark brown, lores, and superciliaries white; wings and tail chestnut red; beneath cinnamomeous, paler on the middle of the belly; large spot in the middle of the throat black; inner margins of wing-feathers and under wing-coverts cinnamomeous; bill black, feet pale hazel: whole length 57 inches, wing 25, tail 26.

_Hab._ Northern Argentina.

White obtained a single example of this new species near Oran in November 1880. It is most nearly allied to _S. scutata_ of Brazil.

196. SYNALLAXIS PHRYGANOPHILA (Vieill.).

(PRETTY-THROATED SPINE-TAIL.)

+Synallaxis phryganophila+, _Burm. La-Plata Reise_, ii. p. 409 (Parana); _Scl. et Salv. Nomencl._ p. 64; _Scl. P. Z. S._ 1874, p. 17; _White, P. Z. S._ 1882, p. 611 (Buenos Ayres); _Barrows, Bull. Nutt. Orn. Cl._ viii. p. 207 (Entrerios).

_Description._--Above, front brown, crown chestnut, superciliaries white; sides of head, neck, back, and tail pale fulvous brown, with broad blackish striations on the neck and back; upper wing-coverts pale chestnut; wing-feathers blackish, the outer webs edged with pale fulvous brown; beneath, upper half of throat sulphur-yellow, lower half black, with a white patch on each side of the black; breast and belly whitish, washed with earthy brown, slightly fulvous on the breast and flanks; under wing-coverts fulvous white; bill and feet horn-colour: whole length 85 inches, wing 24, tail 46.

_Hab._ Paraguay, Argentina, and Uruguay.

This pretty Spine-tail is nowhere common in the Argentine country, and in Buenos Ayres it is exceedingly scarce. It is rather large for a _Synallaxis_, the total length being nine inches. The two middle feathers of the ac.u.minated tail greatly exceed the others in length, measuring five inches. The plumage is very pale brown, marked with fuscous; the crown and wing-coverts rufous. The beauty of the bird is in the throat, which has three strongly contrasted colours, distinguis.h.i.+ng it from all other _Synallaxes_. In the angle of the beak the colour is sulphur-yellow, under this is a patch of velvet-black, and on each side of the yellow and black a pure white patch.

Mr. Barrows has the following very interesting note on its nesting-habits:--”A nest containing four white eggs, faintly tinted with blue, was found in a th.o.r.n.y tree, and some eight feet from the ground. The nest was quite similar to the one just described (of _S.

albescens_), but the cavity in which the eggs were laid was near the _top_ of the body of the nest, while the pa.s.sage-way descended from it to the base of the nest, and there becoming external rose gradually to the level of the eggs at a distance of almost three feet.”

197. SYNALLAXIS STRIATICEPS (Lafr. et d'Orb.).

(STRIPED SPINE-TAIL.)

+Synallaxis striaticeps+, _Burm. La-Plata Reise_, ii. p. 469 (Parana); _Hudson, P. Z. S._ 1872, p. 544 (Rio Negro); _Scl. et Salv. Nomencl._ p. 64; _Scl. P. Z. S._ 1874, p. 21; _Salvin, Ibis_, 1880, p. 358 (Salta); _White, P. Z. S._ 1883, p. 39 (Cordova); _Barrows, Bull. Nutt. Orn. Cl._ viii. p. 208 (Entrerios).

_Description._--Above earthy brown, darker on the crown, which has slight greyish striations; broad superciliaries white; upper wing-coverts pale chestnut; wing-feathers blackish, glossed with olive; tail pale chestnut; beneath white; under wing-coverts pale fulvous; bill and feet horn-colour: whole length 59 inches, wing 24, tail 24. _Female_ similar.

_Hab._ Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay, and Patagonia.

This species has a wide range south of the Equator, being found in Bolivia, Uruguay, and throughout the Argentine Republic, including Patagonia. In its habits it differs widely from other _Synallaxes_, and in structure and coloration is also unlike its relatives.

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