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

374 BULLETIN 133, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM
was not averse to penetrating inland among the scanty bushes that
clothed the slopes of arid gravel hills. Through the pampas coun-
try it was found amid clumps of rough bunch grass that covered
extensive rolling pastures.
The birds are inhabitants of the ground, where they walk about
like meadowlarks {Stiimella) amid the grass. When at all alarmed
they usually presented their obscurely marked backs to the observer,
and when one chanced to turn about the flash of brilliant red on the
breast came as a pleasant surprise from a bird apparently plain in
coloration. Their flight is straight and direct, and is accompanied
by a flash of white from beneath the wing. Their call note was a
low pimp^ while from the ground or some low perch males sang
a wheezy song.
TRUPIALIS DEFILIPPII (Bonaparte)
Sturnus defiUppU Bonapakte, Consp. Gen. Av., vol. 1, 1850, p. 429. (Brazil,
Paraguay, and Montevideo.)
Cultivation and grazing appears to be restricting the numbers of
this species and of T. m. militaris in the Province of Buenos Aires.
Personally I found T. de-filippii only at Carhue, from December 15
to 18, 1920, where four males and two females, with two additional
birds as skeletons, were collected, and at Guamini, Buenos Aires, on
March 3, 1921. Between Empalme Lobos and Bolivar on the same
date flocks of 100 or more were recorded from a train on the date
last mentioned.
While Ti'npialis m. militm'is is suggestive of the meadowlarks
{Stumella) the present bird, in the form of a study skin so closely
similar in appearance, is more like an Agelaius in actions. In fact
defilippii resembles Leistes in habits more than it does T. mMitaris.
T. defXippil seems abundant now in the area between Saavedra
and the foothills of the Sierra de la Ventana. Near Carhue the birds
were scattered over rolling hills and prairies south of town, in a
region grown with clumps of a rough, harsh bunch grass. The birds
were gregarious and were found in flocks that fed in company. In
collecting specimens on one occasion I witnessed a curious example
of the value of sentinels in flock feeding. A flock of these birds was
feeding on the ground among open bunch grass, while one of their
number, a fine plumaged male, remained on guard on the top of a
clump of grass. I made several attempts to approach the flock, but
each time the alarm was given by the sentinel and all rose and flew
before I was within range. Finally I killed the sentinel by a very
long shot, and though the others heard the discharge of the gun,
as no alarm was given, they remained motionless in the grass with
heads erect, where they could look about. I approached nearer
then and killed another with a short-range shell. Two now arose