Zoological Illustrations Series II/Plate 11



In the collection of Birds before alluded to, formed by the late Mr. John Morgan at Real del Monte, was a single skin of this new and elegant species. The snowy whiteness of its throat, renders it not liable to be mistaken in a group of birds, presenting in general a great similarity of plumage. The upper parts are greyish brown, varied with obscure, dusky, broken lines of blackish; each feather being tipt with a small round white spot: wing covers and tertials the same: upper and under tail covers ferruginous; each feather with a white spot before the white one which is at the tip, lower breast and all the under plumage rufous brown, crossed by black lines; the white dots nearly obsolete, tail ferruginous, with about six black bars: legs brown, hind claw as long as the tarsus. Fourth and fifth quill longest.

This genus has been judiciously separated by M. Vieillot from Troglodytes (to which belongs our Brown European Wren), on account of its lengthened and generally notched bill: the greater prolongation of the hind toe is a further distinction; indicating an affinity with the more perfect scansorial Creepers.

To this group belongs the Myothera obsoleta of Prince Charles Bonaparte. No example of that genus, or of Thamnophilus (in their most extended sense), has yet been found north of Cuba: their straight, cylindrical, and abruptly-hooked bills, offer a striking contrast to the lengthened, compressed, curved, and consequently feeble structure of this part in Thriothorus and Troglodytes.

Total length, 5½; bill, 1$1/10$; wings, and tail, 2$6/10$ tarsi, $7/10$.