BIRDS OF KANSAS. 353 



this delicate fairy-like beauty. How the bright green of the 

 body gleams and glistens in the sunlight; while the ruby colored 

 tln'oat, changing with the angle of light as the bird moves, is 

 like a bit of black velvet above the white under parts, or it 

 glows and shimmers like a flame. Each imperceptible stroke 

 of those tiny wings conforms to the mechanical laws of flight in 

 all their subtile complications, with an ease and gracefulness 

 that seems spiritual. Who can fail to note that fine adjustment 

 of the organs of flight to aerial elasticity and gravitation, by 

 which that astonishing bit of nervous energy can rise and fall 

 almost on the perpendicular, dart from side to side, as if by 

 magic, or, assnmiug the horizontal position, pass out of sight 

 like a shooting star? Is it not impossible to conceive of all this 

 being done by that rational calculation which enables the rower 

 to row, or the sailor to sail his boat ? " 



Their deep, cup-shaped nests are usually built on small, hori- 

 zontal limbs of trees, six to twelve feet from the ground; a deli- 

 cate, beautiful structure, composed of a cottony substance, and 

 soft, silky fibers from plants, the outside dotted over with lich- 

 ens. Eggs two (varying in size), .48x. 33; pure white; in form, 

 rather elliptical. 



Order PASSERES. 

 perching birds. 



"Hallux invariably present, completely incumbent, separately movable by 

 specialization of the flexor halhicis longus, with enlarged base and its claw larger 

 than that of the middle digit. Neither second nor fourth toe versatile; joints 

 of toes always 2, 3, 4, 5, from first to fourth. Wing coverts comparatively short 

 and few; with the exception of the least coverts from the plica alaris, arranged 

 in only two series, the greater of which does not reach beyond the middle of the 

 secondary remiges. Rectrices twelve (with rare anomalous exceptions). Mu- 

 sical apparatus present in greater or less develoi^ment and complexity. Palate 

 aegithognathous. Sternum of one particular mould, single notched. Carotid 



single (sinistra). Nature highly altricial and ptilopsedic." 

 —23 



