(COMMON MINER.)
+Geositta cunicularia+, _Burm. La-Plata Reise_, ii. p. 405 (Mendoza,
Paraná); _Scl. et Salv. Nomencl._ p. 61; _Durnford, Ibis_, 1877,
p. 178 (Buenos Ayres), et 1878, p. 395 (Chupat); _Barrows,
Bull. Nutt. Orn. Cl._ viii. p. 203 (Entrerios). +Geositta
tenuirostris+, _White, P. Z. S._ 1882, p. 609 (Salta).
_Description._--Above nearly uniform earthy brown; wing-feathers
pale cinnamon-red; greater part of the outer webs, excepting the
inner secondaries and a transverse bar across the secondaries,
blackish; tail pale cinnamon-red, with a broad blackish band across
the terminal half; beneath pale fulvous white, breast more or less
variegated with blackish; under wing-coverts pale cinnamomeous; bill
horn-colour, pale at the base; feet horn-colour: whole length 5·5
inches, wing 3·5, tail 2·0. _Female_ similar.
_Hab._ Chili, Patagonia and Argentina.
The country people have a variety of names for this common and
well-known species. In Buenos Ayres it is usually called _Manea-cola_
(Shake-tail), in Patagonia _Caserita_ (Little House-builder), and in
other places _Minera_ (Miner) or _Caminante_ (Traveller), from its habit
of running rapidly along a clean road or bridle-path before a person
riding or walking.
It is a stout little bird, with very short toes quite unsuited for
perching, and it does not, in fact, ever perch on a tree, though it
manages to cling to a perpendicular bank very well, when engaged in
opening its breeding-hole. It is resident and pairs for life, and lives
in sterile places, feeding on small insects and spiders. In manner it
is very lively, and runs swiftly over the bare ground, stopping very
abruptly, then running on again, and at every pause slowly moving its
half-open tail up and down. It flies swiftly, close to the ground, and
always during its short flight trills out its clear, ringing, rapidly
reiterated cry, which in sound resembles the laughter of a child.
On the grassy pampas the Miners invariably attach themselves to the
_Vizcacheras_--as the groups of great burrows made by the large rodent,
the Vizcacha, are called; for there is always a space free from grass
surrounding the burrows where the birds can run freely about. In the
sides of the deep pit-like entrance to one of these burrows the bird
bores a cylindrical hole, from three to six feet long, and terminating
in a circular chamber. This is lined with soft dry grass, and five white
eggs are laid.
Though the birds inhabit the Vizcacha village all the year, they seem
always to make a fresh hole to breed in every spring, the forsaken holes
being given up to the small Swallow, _Atticora cyanoleuca_.