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

BIRDS OF ARGENTINA, PARAGUAY, URUGUAY, AND CHILE 289
An adult male, secured near Victorica, Pampa, December 27, 1920,
hopped about in the bushes at the border of a thicket Avith the tail
held like that of a gnatcatcher at a jaunty angle above the back.
The bill in this specimen was black ; iris hessian brown ; tarsus and
toes dark neutral gray.
EUSCARTHMUS MELORYPHUS MELORYPHUS Wied
Euscarthmus meloryphus Wied, Beitr. Nat. Brasilien, vol. 3, 1831, p. 947.
("Campo geral " and the border line between the Provinces of Minas
Geraes and Bahia, Brazil.)
An adult male secured at Las Palmas, Chaco, on July 23, 1920,
does not seem to differ markedly from a specimen of this bird in the
Field Museum from Macaco Secco, near Andarahy, Brazil. In the
skin from Las Palmas dull olive-green tips on the central crown
feathers almost entirely obscure the ochraceous-tawny color of the
central crown stripe.
This small bird was encountered in swampy woods in a heavy
growth of caraguata (Aechmea disticliantlia) , a spiny-leaved plant
that covered the forest floor, where it worked about a few inches
from the ground, hopping slowly over the broad plant leaves or
fluttering feebly from perch to perch in its search for food.
Oberholser^° has indicated that, through a type fixation by Gray
in 1840 (List Gen. Birds, p. 32), the genus Euscarthmus Wied, 1831,
is applicable to the present species, replacing Hapalocercus Cubanis,
1847. Mr. Ridgway ^'^ considers this genus as possibly a member of
the Formicariidae. It is certainly not a true flycatcher, and is
included tentatively at this point.
Family RHINOCRYPTIDAE "^
SCYTALOPUS FUSCUS Gould
Scytalopus fuscus, Gould, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, February, 1837, p. 89.
(Chile.)
An immature male in full plumage, secured April 27, 1921, near
Concon, Chile, was the only bird of this group encountered. While
crossing a deep gulch with a small stream at the bottom, heavily
shaded by a dense growth of trees, the individual in question, in its
dull plumage barely visible in the somber shadows, came silently into
««Auk, 1923, p. 327.
«^ U. S. Nat. Mus., Bull. 50, pt. 4, p. 339.
'^Apparently the first family designation for the tapaculos is that of Lafresnaye,
who, in an Essai de I'Ordre dcs Passcreaux (the first part of which seems to have been
published at Falaise in 1838, though doubt attaches to the date of succeeding sections),
has as his third family (p. 13) the Rbinomidae. This, Lafresnaye continues, has for
its type the genus Rhinomye Geoffroy, established in 1832, an evident emendation of
Rhinomya. With Rhinocrypta replacing Rhinomya as a generic term the family name
for the group becomes Rhinocryptidae instead of Pteroptochidae or Hylactidae, two
terms that have been in common use.