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

254 BULLETIN 133, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM
hopped silently among limbs and roots, its very quietness lending a
sense of mystery heightened by the dark shadows of its haunts.
This individual, a female, is distinctly duller in color on the dorsal
surface than two specimens in the United States National Museum
marked Brazil without definite locality. It i^robably represents a
southern form, at present not recognized. Measurements of this
specimen are as follows: Wing, 63.7; tail, 45.5; exposed culmen, 17.4;
tarsus, 23.1 mm.
PHLEOCRYPTES MELANOPS MELANOPS (Vieillot)
Sylvia melanops Vieillot, Nouv. Diet. Hist. Nat., vol. 11, 1817, p. 232.
(Paraguay.)
The present species, an inhabitant of fresh-water marshes, was
recorded as follows : Lavalle, Buenos Aires, October 28 to November
9, 1920 (three adult males, taken October 28, November 2 and 9, and
an adult female, October 29) ; Carhue, Buenos Aires, December 15
to 18 (adult male, shot December 15, two adult females, on December
16 and 18) ; Lazcano, Uruguay, February 7 and 8, 1921 (immature
female, taken February 7) ;
Tunuyan, Mendoza, March 25 to 28 (two
females, secured March 26). The series of nine specimens taken,
compared with others from Chile and Patagonia, offers no constant
differences and, save for seasonal variation, is quite uniform
in color. Birds in fresh fall plumage are considerably browner than
others. As the breeding season comes on they become paler through
wear, so that birds secured in December are frequently almost white
on the breast. There is considerable variation in length of bill.
Phleocryptes Tnelano'ps schoenohaenus Cabanis and Heine-'' is darker
above and below and larger than true melanops. The generic name
has been usually emended to Phloeocryptes but was written Phleo-
cryptes originally.
The North American, viewing Neotropical birds for the first
time, finds among them many striking similarities to birds from
his own land, among which the tracheophone Phleocryptes is as
striking as any, since in general appearance, notes, and haunt this
frequenter of cat-tail and rush-grown marshes is similar to the
oscinine long-billed marsh wren, a bird of an entirely different
group. As one approaches the rushes of some canadon in the east-
ern pampas, a small wrenlike bird may come near to hop about
excitedly among the rushes to the accompaniment of clicking notes
like those made by striking two pebbles together, and in a short
time half a dozen of these Phleocryptes may be gathered about.
Their alarm is soon over and it is not unusual to have them come
almost within reach to look about confidingly. Where the aquatic
^Phleocryptes schoenohaenus Cabanis and Heine, Mus. Hein., pt. 2, 1859, p. 20.
(Lake Titicaca, Peru.)