(PRETTY-THROATED SPINE-TAIL.)
+Synallaxis phryganophila+, _Burm. La-Plata Reise_, ii. p. 409
(Paraná); _Scl. et Salv. Nomencl._ p. 64; _Scl. P. Z. S._ 1874,
p. 17; _White, P. Z. S._ 1882, p. 611 (Buenos Ayres); _Barrows,
Bull. Nutt. Orn. Cl._ viii. p. 207 (Entrerios).
_Description._--Above, front brown, crown chestnut, superciliaries
white; sides of head, neck, back, and tail pale fulvous brown, with
broad blackish striations on the neck and back; upper wing-coverts
pale chestnut; wing-feathers blackish, the outer webs edged with
pale fulvous brown; beneath, upper half of throat sulphur-yellow,
lower half black, with a white patch on each side of the black;
breast and belly whitish, washed with earthy brown, slightly fulvous
on the breast and flanks; under wing-coverts fulvous white; bill and
feet horn-colour: whole length 8·5 inches, wing 2·4, tail 4·6.
_Hab._ Paraguay, Argentina, and Uruguay.
This pretty Spine-tail is nowhere common in the Argentine country,
and in Buenos Ayres it is exceedingly scarce. It is rather large for
a _Synallaxis_, the total length being nine inches. The two middle
feathers of the acuminated tail greatly exceed the others in length,
measuring five inches. The plumage is very pale brown, marked with
fuscous; the crown and wing-coverts rufous. The beauty of the bird is in
the throat, which has three strongly contrasted colours, distinguishing
it from all other _Synallaxes_. In the angle of the beak the colour is
sulphur-yellow, under this is a patch of velvet-black, and on each side
of the yellow and black a pure white patch.
Mr. Barrows has the following very interesting note on its
nesting-habits:--"A nest containing four white eggs, faintly tinted
with blue, was found in a thorny tree, and some eight feet from the
ground. The nest was quite similar to the one just described (of _S.
albescens_), but the cavity in which the eggs were laid was near the
_top_ of the body of the nest, while the passage-way descended from it
to the base of the nest, and there becoming external rose gradually to
the level of the eggs at a distance of almost three feet."