shortest circuitous route, for otherwise they would not have made so many vain attempts. UPPUCERTHIA DUMETORIA. _J. Geoffr. & D’Orb._ PLATE XIX. Uppucerthia dumetoria, _J. Geoffr. & D’Orb._ Ann. du Mus. i. 393 and 394. Furnarius dumetorum, _D’Orb._ MS. Uppucerthia dumetorum, _D’Orb. & Lafr._ Mag. de Zool. 1838, p. 20. This bird is an inhabitant of extremely sterile regions. I saw several at the Rio Negro, but at Port Desire they were, perhaps, more numerous. I did not observe it near Valparaiso, in Central Chile, but I procured specimens of it from Coquimbo, where the country is more desert. It frequents open places, in which a few bushes grow. It hops very quickly, and often flies quietly from one place to another. It may often be seen turning over and picking dry pieces of dung. It is a remarkable circumstance, that in the three specimens which I brought home, from different localities, namely the Rio Negro, Port Desire, and Coquimbo, the beak varies considerably in length: in that from Port Desire in Patagonia it is three-eighths of an inch shorter than in that from Coquimbo in Chile; whilst the Rio Negro specimen is intermediate between them. Mr. G. R. Gray has pointed out to me that Latham long since observed a great variation in the beak of the Patagonian warbler, _Opetiorhynchus Patagonicus_. 1. OPETIORHYNCHUS VULGARIS. _G. R. Gray._ Uppucerthia vulgaris, _D’Orb. & Lafr._ Mag. de Zool. 1838, p. 23.