CHAPTER XII. — AMERICAN WARBLERS 



Fam. SYLVICOLIDiE 



PRIMARIES nine; rectrices twelve; scutellation of tarsi, 

 disposition of wing-coverts, and structure of lower larynx 

 strictly Oscine in character. It is simply impossible to define 

 the SylvicoUdce, because it is an artificial group, corresponding 

 with no natural division of birds, and consequently having no 

 natural boundaries. As customarily limited, this family — its 

 North American representatives at any rate — may be distin- 

 guished from other nine-primaried Oscines, excepting Cccrebidw, 

 by the following negations : — Inner secondaries not enlarged, 

 nor hind toe lengthened and straightened, as occurs in Motacil- 

 lidce. Bill not " fissirostral ", as in Hirundinidw; nor strongly 

 "dentirostral", — that is, hooked and toothed at end, — as in Lan- 

 iidceand Vireonidce; nor yet typically "conirostral", as in Frin- 

 gillidce; and without the tooth or lobe near the middle of the 

 commissure which exists in the genus Pyranga of Tanagridce. 

 From the Ccerebidce,* or Honey-creepers of the warmer parts of 



*In B. B. & R. Hist. N. A. B.,i. p. 177, we read: — " In fact, we are of the opin- 

 ion that no violence would bo done by adopting this view [the propriety of 

 uniting Tamigridce, Sylvicolidce, and Cccreiidw'], and would even include with 

 the above-mentioned families the Fringillidw also. The order of their rela- 

 tion to one another would be thus : Fringillidw, Tanagridce, Sylvicolidce, Ccere- 

 bidce ; there being scarcely any break in the transition between the two ex- 

 tremes, unless there are many genera referred to the wrong family, as seems 

 very likely to be the case with many included in the Tanagridce. The/rin- 

 gilline forms of the latter family are such genera as Buarremon and Arremon, 

 they being so closely related to some fringilline genera by so many features — 

 as rounded concave wing, lax plumage, and spizine coloration — as to be 

 scarcely separable. Either these two families are connected so perfectly by 

 intermediate forms as to be inseparable, or the term Tanagridce covers too 

 great a diversity of forms. With the same regularity that we proceed from 

 the Fringillidce to the typical forms of the Tanagridce (Pyranga, Tanagra, 

 Calliste, etc.), we pass down the scale from these to the Sylvicolida; ; while 

 between many genera of the latter family, and others referred to the Coere- 

 lidcB, no difference in external anatomy can be discovered, much less ex- 

 pressed in a description." 

 196 



