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Show 52 . ZOOLOGY OF TilE VOYAGE OF TilE BEAGLE. G. R. Gray has pointed out that Commerson had previously considered it the type of his genus, Licltenops, we have been induced to prefer the latter as the oldest name. It is common in the neighbourhood of the Plata, and across the Pampas, as far as Mendoza on the eastern foot of the Andes; it has not, however, crossed those mountains and entered Chile. It usually sits on the top of a thistle, and like our common fly-catchers (Muscicapa g1'isola), takes short flights in pursuit of insects; but does not, like that bird, return to the same twig. It feeds, also, occasionally on the turf: in the stomach of some which I opened, I found Coleopterous insects, chiefly Curculionidre. Beak, eye-lid, and iris, beautiful primrose yellow. 2. LICHENOPS ERYTHROPTERUS. Gould. PLATE IX. L. s1~p1·a nigrescenti-brunnezts, plwnis rufo-marginatis; primm·iis secundariisque castaneis, apicibus pog oni(IJque extern(IJ dilnidio apicali brunneis; gultu1·e corpm·eque subtus cervinis ; pectore brunneo-mmginalo. Long. tot. 6 unc.; alre, 3; caudre, 2i; tai'Bi, 1; rostri, n· All the upper surface and tail blackish brown, each feather margined with rufous; primaries and secondaries reddish chesnut, their tips and their external webs for half their length from the tip, brown; tertiaries, greater and lesser wingcoverts dark-brown, each feather margined with reddish buff; throat, and all the under SUI-face, fawn colour; the chest spotted with brown; base of the bill, and chiefly of the lower mandible, as well as the iris, bright yellow ; eye-lid, blackish yellow; feet, dark brown. Habitat, Banks of the Plata. This bird is not very common. It frequents damp ground, where rushes grow, on the bot·ders oflakes. It feeds on the ground and wal/cs. It is certainly allied in many respects with the foregoing species, but in its power of walking, and in feeding on the ground, there is a marked difference in habits. As it has lately been describcd (Swainson's Nat. Libr. Ornith. x. p. 106.) as the female of the L. perspicillalus, I will here point out some of its chief distinguishing chamcters. Its beak is slightly more depressed, but with the ridge rather more plainly pronounced. In the L. perspicillat'lls, the upper mandible is entirely yellow, excepting the apex; in tl~e L. er,l)tltropterus, it is entirely pale brown, excepting the base. The eyelid in the former· is bright p1·imrose yellow, in the latter blackish yellow. The tail of L. erylltrople1·us is squarer and contains only ten feathers instead of twelve: the wing is '1411 of an inch shorter, and the secondaries relatively to the primaries are also shorter. The red colour on the primaries represents, but does not correspond with, the white on the black feathers of L. perspicillatus; and the secondaries in the two birds |
