Bulletin - United States National Museum - si-pddr - Smithsonian ...

214 BULLETIN 133, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM
and in the persistence with which they searched for food they sug-
gested the smaller members of the genus Dryohates, but frequented
denser cover than is usual in birds of that group. Usually they were
found working steadily along, tapping the limbs over which they
passed as if to test them. When food was discovered they worked
quietly and rapidly, hammering steadily without apparent attention
to their surroundings. When insects were abundant considerable
areas on dead trunks were denuded of bark before the bird had exhausted
possibilities and had moved to other feeding grounds. The
only note heard from them was a low chuh cJiuh. On September 20
one of these quiet little birds under the influence of spring began to
drum. The rattle produced was rather short and was made somewhat
slowly, Avith a decrease in speed toward the end that produced
a drawling sound of little carrying power.
The species was recorded as follows: Resistencia, Chaco, July 8
and 10, 1920; Las Palmas, Chaco, July 14 to 31; Riacho Pilaga,
Formosa, August 18 ; Formosa, Formosa, August 23 ; Puerto Pinasco,
Paraguay, September 1, 11, and 20. A female was taken at Resis-
tencia July 8
; a male at Las Palmas, July 14, and a male at Kilometer
80, west of Puerto Pinasco, September 11.
VENILIORNIS FRONTALIS (Cabanis)
Cloroncrpes (Campias) fro)ita1is Cabanis, .Touni. fiir Ornith., 1883, p.
110. (Tucuman.)
April IT, 1921, between 1,600 and 1,800 meters on the slopes of the
Sierra San Xavier above Tafi Viejo, Tucuman, several of these
woodpeckers were seen, and a female was taken. They worked
busily along limbs or small trunks, often in localities near the
ground where they were entirely concealed by dense vegetation, and
their presence was indicated merely by their low calls or their hammering
in search for food.
VENILIORNIS SPILOGASTER (Wagler)
Picus spilogaster Waglkr, Syst. Av., 1827, p. 33. (Brazil and Paraguay.)
An adult female was taken near San Vicente, Uruguay, on January
30, 1921, in heavy tree growth in a gulch on the side of the
Cerro Navarro. The bird was in such heavy cover that I should
not have found it save for its steady hammering on a dead limb.
Another was shot at Rio Negro, Uruguay, on February 15, as it
worked quietly through a lowland thicket near a small stream.
Both specimens are in molt on the body. The first one taken
had the maxilla and tip of the mandible dull black; base of mandible
storm gray; iris bone brown; tarsus and toes dark-grayish olive;
claws dusky neutral gray.