Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.3)

Jan. 1835. ornithology. 353 tioned in Tierra del Fuego, under the title of a black wren {Scytalopus fuscus of Gould), appears, in its skulking habits, odd cries, and place of resort, and likewise in some points of structure, to be closely related to this singular genus. On the coast,* a small dusky-coloured bird (a Fiirnarius allied to J'uliginosus) is very common. Tt is remarkable from its quiet and very tame habits. It lives entirely on the sea- beach, and there (as weU as sometimes on the floating kelp), picks up small sea-shells and crabs ; thus supplying the place of a sandpiper. Besides these birds, only a few others in- habit this broken land. In my rough notes I describe the strange noises, which although frequently heard within these gloomy forests, yet scarcely disturb the general silence. The yelping of the guid-guid, and the sudden whew-whew of the cheucau, sometimes come from afar, and sometimes from close at hand ; — the little wren occasionally adds its cry ; the creeper follows the intruder, screaming and twittering ; the humming-bird may be seen every now and then darting from side to side, and emitting, like an insect, its shrill chirp — lastly, from the top of some lofty tree, the indistinct but plaintive note of the white-tufted tyrant-flycatcher may be noticed. From the great preponderance in most covintries of certain kinds of birds, such as the finches, one feels at first surprised at meeting with such peculiar forms, above enumerated, as the commonest birds in any district. In central Chile two of them, namely the Synallaxis and Scytalopus, occur, al- though most rarely. When finding, as in this case, any animal which seems to play so insignificant a part in the great scheme of nature, one is apt to wonder why a distinct species * I may mention as a proof of how great a difference there is between the seasons of the wooded and the open parts of the coast, that on Septem- ber 20th, in lat. 34*^, these birds had young ones in the nest, while among the Clionos Islands, three months later in the summer, they were only lay- ing ; the difference in latitude between these two places being about 700 miles. VOL. III. 2 A