Habitat, Chiloe and Southern Chile.
Birds. Pl. 27.
Dendrodramus leucosternus.
This bird is common in the forests of Chiloe, where, differently from the Oxyurus tupinieri, it may constantly be seen running up the trunks of the lofty forest trees. Its manners appeared to me to resemble those of Certhia familiaris. I found Coleopterous insects in its stomach. Its range does not appear to be extensive; Chiloe to the south, and some woods near Rancagua (a degree south of Valparaiso) were the extreme points where I met with it. The Dendrodramus is not found in Tierra del Fuego, where the O. tupinieri is so numerous. Mr. G. R. Gray remarks that this genus is very nearly allied to Dendroplex of Mr. Swainson.
Family.—SYLVIADÆ.
Sub-Fam.—MOTACILLINÆ.
1. Muscisaxicola mentalis. D’Orb. & Lafr.
M. mentalis, D’Orb. & Lafr. Mag. de Zool. 1837, p. 66.
—— Voy. dans l’Amer. Mer. Ornith. pl. 40, f. 1.
I procured specimens of this bird from Bahia Blanca, in Northern Patagonia, from Tierra del Fuego, from Chiloe, and from Central and Northern Chile. It is everywhere common. It frequents open places; so that in the wooded countries it lives entirely on the sea beaches, or near the summits of mountains, where trees do not grow. In the excessively sterile upper valleys of the Cordillera of Northern Chile I met with this bird, even at a height of little less than ten thousand feet, where the last traces of vegetation occur, and where no other bird lives. It generally moves about in very small flocks, and frequents rocky streams and marshy ground: it hops and flies from stone to stone, very much after the manner of our whinchat (Motacilla rubetra), but when alighting it frequently expands its tail like a fan. The sexes are exactly similar in size and plumage.