_Description._--Above plumbeous, with slight darker shaft-spots; front of head bright red; wings and tail blackish, two well-marked wing-bars and tips of all lateral rectrices white; beneath bright red; flanks plumbeous; under wing-coverts whitish: whole length 7·0 inches, wing 3·5, tail 3·3. _Female_: above grey, densely striated with black; beneath dirty white, with dense black striations, belly and crissum fulvous. _Hab._ Argentine Republic. I found this curious little bird quite common in Patagonia, where the natives call it _Chingolo grande_, on account of its superficial resemblance to the common Song-Sparrow (_Zonotrichia pileata_). The colouring of the sexes differs considerably, the forehead and under surface of the male being deep brick-red; the upper parts dull grey, with a bar on the wing and the tips of the rectrices white; while in the female the upper parts are yellowish grey, obscurely mottled, and the breast and belly buff, with dark spots. In both sexes the eye is yellow, and the feathers of the crown pileated to form a crest. This bird is usually seen singly, but sometimes associates in small flocks; it is resident, and a very weak flier, and feeds on tender buds and leaves, berries and small seed. The male is frequently seen perched on the summit of a bush, and, amidst the dull-plumaged species that people the grey thickets of Patagonia, the bright red bosom gives it almost a gay appearance. When singing, or uttering its alarm notes when the nest is approached, its voice resembles the feeble bleatings of a small kid or lamb. When approached it conceals itself in the bush, and when flying progresses by a series of short jerky undulations, the wings producing a loud humming sound. The nest is made in the interior of a thorny bush, and built somewhat slightly of fine twigs and lined with fibres. The eggs are four, bluish-green in colour, with brownish flecks. This species is found throughout the Argentine country, in dry, open situations, abounding with a scanty tree and bush vegetation. Suborder III. _TRACHEOPHONÆ._ Fam. XVII. DENDROCOLAPTIDÆ, or WOOD-HEWERS. The _Dendrocolaptidæ_ are an important family in American Ornithology, numbering some 220 species, and distributed in greater or less abundance over every part of the Neotropical Region from Mexico to Patagonia. Within Argentine limits 46 species occur. While green is the characteristic colour of the _Tyrannidæ_, brown is the favoured hue of the _Dendrocolaptidæ_, both the forest-loving and campos-frequenting members of the group being nearly without exception arrayed in various shades of that sombre colour, to which a ferruginous tail is a very frequent appendage.