Azara says:—“I give it this name because it sings it plainly, in a loud sharp tone, which may be heard at a distance, repeating it so frequently that the pauses last no longer than the sound. It is resident (in Paraguay), solitary and not abundant: inhabits thickets of aloes and thorn, without rising more than two yards above the surface, or showing itself in open places. It moves about incessantly, but does not leave its thicket to visit the woods or open ground, its flight being only from bush to bush; and though it is not timid, it is hard to detect it in its stronghold, and to hear it one would imagine that it was perched overhead on a tree, when it is hidden all the time in the brushwood at the roots.”
This habit of concealing itself so closely inclines me to think that this species, rather than S. albescens, was the bird described by Azara, although in both species the language is nearly the same. I have nothing to add to the above account from the ‘Apuntamientos,’ except that in the love-season this species has a low, strange-sounding little song, utterly unlike its usual strident cry. When singing, it sits motionless on the summit of a low bush in a dejected attitude with head drawn in, and murmurs its mysterious little melody at intervals of half a minute.
[194.] SYNALLAXIS ALBESCENS, Temm.
(WHITE-THROATED SPINE-TAIL.)
Synallaxis albescens, Scl. et Salv. Nomencl. p. 63; Scl. P. Z. S. 1874, p. 9; Durnford, Ibis, 1877, p. 180 (Buenos Ayres); White, P. Z. S. 1882, p. 611 (Misiones); Barrows, Bull. Nutt. Orn. Cl. viii. p. 207 (Entrerios).
Description.—Above, forehead grey, crown pale chestnut; sides of head and neck, back, and tail pale earthy brown; upper wing-coverts pale chestnut, wing-feathers olive-brown; beneath white, faintly washed with earthy brown; under wing-coverts fulvous: whole length 5·3 inches, wing 2·0, tail 2·2.
Hab. S. America, from Veragua to Buenos Ayres.
This species, although by no means abundant in Buenos Ayres, is met with much more frequently than the S. spixi, which it closely resembles in size, colour, habits, and language. It is, indeed, an unusual thing for two species so closely allied to be found inhabiting the same district. In both birds the colours are arranged in precisely the same way; but the chestnut tint on S. albescens is not nearly so deep, the browns and greys are paler, and there is less black on the throat.
I am pretty sure that in Buenos Ayres it is migratory, and as soon as it appears in spring it announces its arrival by its harsh, persistent, two-syllabled note, wonderfully strong for so small a bird, and which it repeats at intervals of two or three seconds for half an hour without intermission. When close at hand it is quite as distressing as the grinding noise of a Cicada. This painful noise is uttered while the bird sits concealed amid the foliage of a tree, and is renewed at frequent intervals, and continues every day until the Spine-tail finds a mate, when all at once it becomes silent. The nest is placed in a low thorn-bush, sometimes only two or three feet above the ground, and is an oblong structure of sticks, twelve or fourteen inches in depth, with the entrance near the top, and reached by a tubular passage made of slender sticks, and six or seven inches long. From the top of the nest a crooked passage leads to the cavity near the bottom; this is lined with a little fine grass, and nine eggs are laid, pear-shaped and pale bluish white in colour. I have found several nests with nine eggs, and therefore set that down as the full number of the clutch, though I confess it seems very surprising that this bird should lay so many. When the nest is approached, the parent birds remain silent and concealed at some distance. When the nest is touched or shaken, the young birds, if nearly fledged, have the singular habit of running out and jumping to the ground to conceal themselves in the grass.
I have no doubt that this species varies greatly in its habits in different districts, and probably also in the number of eggs it lays. Mr. Barrows, an excellent observer, says it lays three or four light blue eggs. He met with it at Concepcion, in the northern part of the Argentine Republic, and writes that it is “an abundant species in thorny hedges or among the masses of dwarfed and spiny bushes, which cling to each other so tenaciously amid the general desolation of the sandy barrens.” The nests which he describes vary also in some particulars from those I have seen. “Entrance is gained by the bird,” he says, “through a long tube, which is built on to the nest at a point about half way up the side. This tube is formed by the interlocking of thorny twigs, and is supported by the branches and twigs about it. It may be straight or curved; its diameter externally varies from two to four inches, and its length from one to two feet. The passage-way itself is but just large enough to admit the birds one at a time, and it has always been a mystery to me how a bird the size of a Chipping-Sparrow could find its way through one of these slender tubes, bristling with thorns, and along which I found it difficult to pass a smooth slender twig for more than five or six inches. Yet they not only pass in and out easily, but so easily that I was never yet able to surprise one in the nest, or to see the slightest disturbance of it by the bird’s hurried exit.”