Occasionally
the plaintive note of a white-tufted tyrant-flycatcher
(Myiobius albiceps) may be heard, concealed near the summit
of the most lofty trees; and more rarely the loud strange
cry of a black wood-pecker, with a fine scarlet crest on its
head.
A little, dusky-coloured wren (Scytalopus Magellanicus)
hops in a skulking manner among the entangled mass
of the fallen and decaying trunks. But the creeper (Oxyurus
tupinieri) is the commonest bird in the country. Throughout
the beech forests, high up and low down, in the most
gloomy, wet, and impenetrable ravines, it may be met with.
This little bird no doubt appears more numerous than it
really is, from its habit of following with seeming curiosity
any person who enters these silent woods: continually uttering
a harsh twitter, it flutters from tree to tree, within a few
feet of the intruder's face. It is far from wishing for the
modest concealment of the true creeper (Certhia familiaris);
nor does it, like that bird, run up the trunks of trees, but
industriously, after the manner of a willow-wren, hops about,
and searches for insects on every twig and branch. In the
more open parts, three or four species of finches, a thrush,
a starling (or Icterus), two Opetiorhynchi, and several hawks
and owls occur.
The absence of any species whatever in the whole class of
Reptiles, is a marked feature in the zoology of this country,
as well as in that of the Falkland Islands.
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