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

BIRDS OF ARGENTINA, PARAGUAY, URUGUAY, AND CHILE 251
female, July 26)
; Riacho Pilaga, Formosa, August 11 and 18 (two
males, taken on the latter date) ; and Tapia, Tucuman, April 7 to
13 (an immature female, shot April 7). There is no appreciable
difference in appearance in specimens from the three localities rep-
resented by the five birds preserved as skins. The association of this
and allied straight-billed forms in the genus Ufucerthia with spe-
cies of the U. dumetaria type is questionable.
These birds of wrenlike appearance and action inhabited heavy
brush where they worked about on or near the ground, in such dense
cover that it was difficult to observe them. At any alarm they gave
vent to loud whistled calls, suggestive of those of a canyon wren,
and at times were called out by squeaking noises. Their notes are
loud and might easily be attributed to a bird of greater bulk.
In an immature male the maxilla and tip of the mandible were
dull black; base of mandible pallid brownish drab; tarsus and toes
fuscous.
UPUCERTHIA LUSCINIA (Barmeister)
Ochetorhynchus Luscinia Burmeister, Journ. fiir Ornith., 1860, p. 249.
( Mendoza. ) '*
The present species was encountered only on a dry flat above the
city of Mendoza, Province of Mendoza, western Argentina, on March
13, 1921, when a female was taken. The few noted Avere found in
low brush along a dry wash.
This bird has been treated as a geographic race of U. cei^thioideSy
a usage not borne out in my opinion by examination of specimens,
since luscima^ in addition to larger size, much more robust form, and
more grayish coloration, has a decidedly longer tail and broader rec-
trices. The difference between the two is so extensive that any in'
tergradation, indicating subspecific relationship, must be considered
extremely doubtful unless it may be definitely proved by specimens.
CINCLODES FUSCUS FUSCUS (Vieillot)
Anthu8 fuscus Vieillot, Nouv. Diet. Hist. Xat., vol. 26, 1818, p. 490.
(Montevideo and Buenos Aires.)
At Berazategui, in the Province of Buenos Aires, several were
seen and a male was taken on June 29, 1920, on low ground near the
Rio de la Plata. An immature male Avas shot at El Salto, at an ele-
vation of 1,600 meters above Potrerillos, Mendoza, on March 19, 1921.
This second specimen has several white feathers in the crov.n, an
albinistic tendency. It is darker brown than the one shot near
Buenos Aires.
These birds walk on the ground with constantly wagging tails, and
when flushed may fly, with a flash of the light band in the wings, to a
** According to Ilartert (Nov. Zool.. vol. 16, December, 1909, p. 208).