264 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 



Family BOMBYCILLID^. The Chatterers. 



Primaries ten, the first very short or moderate, always less than half the second ; 

 bill short, broad, triangular, much depressed; gape opening nearly to the eyes, 

 twice the length of the culmen; both mandibles notched, the upper with a tooth 

 behind the notch ; tarsi scutellate anteriorly, with indications also of scales inferiorly 

 on the sides (except in Myiadestesf), shorter than tlie middle toe; outer lateral toe 

 longest; toes unequally cleft; head generally crested. 



Sub-Family Bombtcillin^. — The Wax Wings. 



AMPELIS, LiNN^us. 



Ampelis, Linn^us, Syst. Nat. (1735). (Type A. garrulus.) 



Head with a broad, depressed crest; bill verj' broad, opening nearly to the eye; 

 a series of short, velvety feathers at the base of the bill, with bristles directed for- 

 wards and covering the nostrils, but none along the rictus; commissure straight; 

 culmen and gonys curved, convex ; both mandibles notched at tip ; legs stout ; tarsi 

 shorter than the middle toe, scutellate anteriorly, and slightly on the lower half on 

 the sides behind, sliglitly feathered above; hind toe shorter than the lateral, which 

 are equal; wings very long, pointed, reaching almost to the tip of the nearly even 

 tail; first primary so short as to be with difficulty discernible, the second quill 

 longest; tips of secondary quills with horny appendages, like sealing-wax. 



AMPELIS GARRULUS. — Linncms. 



The Wax-wing; Bohemian Chatterer. 



" Lanius garrulus, Linnseus. Fauna Suecica, II. No. 82." 

 Ampelis garrulus, Linneeus. Syst. Nat., I. (1766) 297. 

 Bombydlla garrula. Aud. Cm. Biog., IV. (1838) 462. 



Desceiption. 



Highly crested; general color brownish-ash, with a faint shade of reddish, 

 especially anteriorly; the forehead, sides of the head, and under tail coverts, brown- 

 ish-orange ; the hinder parts purer ash ; the region about the vent white ; primaries 

 and tail feathers plumbeous black, especially towards the tips; the tail with a ter- 

 minal band of yellow ; a narrow frontal line passing backward and involving the 

 eye, and extending above and behind it; chin and upper part of throat black; tips 

 of the secondary coverts, and a spot on the end of the outer webs of all the quills, 

 white; those on the inner primaries glossed with j'ellow; secondaries with red, homy 

 tips, like sealing-wax; side of the lower jaw whitish. 



Length, seven and forty one-hundredths inches ; wing, four and fifty one-hun- 

 dredths inches; tail, three inches. 



