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Show 1870.] LETTER FROM MR. W. H. HUDSON. 113 " 1. Bathmidurus variegatus (Burm.).-I have met with but one individual of this prettily mottled Flycatcher. There is no example in the Buenos-Ayres Museum. It is probably very rare in La Plata, but is, I believe, found in Brazil. " 2. Tyrannus aurantio-atro-cristatus (Lafr. et d'Orb.).-Of this species I have also obtained only one specimen. Its flight was like that of the T. melancholicus. It was of a uniform dusky colour, with a golden crest. The specimen in the Buenos-Ayres Museum was brought from Entre Rios. " 3 . Fluvicola albiventris (Spix). The Buenos-Ayres Museum has specimens of this bird from Brazil; but I have met with several individuals here. The black upper and snowy-white lower plumage render it conspicuous; but though so small a bird, it is extremely shy of approach, and has a rapid flight. It frequents the borders of streams, and breeds in the thick bushes oisarandi growing in the water. Its only note is a low ticking, uttered when the nest is approached. " 4 . Synallaxis albescens*.-The specimens in the Buenos-Ayres Museum of this bird were obtained in South Brazil. I met with it frequently in the tola" and sayus-woo&s, where it unfailingly discovers itself by its loud, harsh, incessant note. It has also in the pairing-season a low strange song, very different from the usual shrill trilling notes of all its tribe. It leaves us in the winter. " 5 . Synallaxis cegithaloides.-There is no example of this bird in the Buenos-Ayres Museum. Its colour is a yellowish brown. I met with a few individuals of it in some beds of a peculiar reed, of which the only other inhabitants were the Limnornis curvirostris. Though only about half the size of that bird, in notes and habits, as well as in habitat, it is exactly similar. " 6. Lepidocolaptes atripes.-This bird, remarkable for its extravagantly long bill, I have observed in the tola-woods. Their notes are exceedingly loud and shrill; their flight, while passing from tree to tree, rapid, low, and undulating. They invariably alight on the bole of a tree, and sit upright with the head thrown far back, or run round and up the trunk searching for insects in the dead bark. They arrive here late in the spring. " 7. Thamnophilus argentinus.-Inhabits the sayus-swam-ps, but is not common. Its low and trilling note is very peculiar, and is more like the song of a night insect than that of a bird. " 8. Poospiza albifrons (Vieill.).-Inhabits the sayus-woods and reed-beds, but is a rare bird, and resembles in colour the yellow withered herbage which it frequents. I have never heard it sing. The allied species, the Poospiza nigro-rufa, is much more common, frequenting the tola-woods, and often met with in orchards and hedges at a distance from the river. It is a pretty bird, the ruddy brown throat and breast and the straw-coloured line over the eye contrasting well with the dark upper plumage. It feeds and makes its nest on the ground, but loves to sit in a bush or low tree, and has a sweet and lively song. * I a m now a little doubtful whether the single skin thus named (P. Z. S. 1868, p 141) was not rather S. spixi, of which three examples occurred in Mr. Hudson's third collection (see P. Z. S. 1869, p. 632).-P. L. S. PROC. ZOOL. Soc-1870, No. VIII. |
