388 



CALAMOHERPE. REEDLING. 



The species of which this genus is composed are remarkable 

 for their habit of frequenting marshy places, and the banks of 

 rivers and lakes, among the willows, reeds, sedges, and other 

 plants of which they seek their food, creejiing along the stalks 

 and foliage, to which they cling with as much ease and free- 

 dom as the Tits and Kinglets exhibit while searching the twigs 

 of trees. But unless in having the tarsi rather more elongated, 

 the claws larger, and the wings shorter and more concave, they 

 differ little from some of the Sylviae, 



Bill of moderate length, straight, slender, broader than high 

 at the base, compressed toward the end ; upper mandible with 

 its dorsal outline slightly declinate, towards the end a little 

 convex, the ridge narrowed at the base, the sides convex to- 

 wards the end, the edges direct, sharp, and overlapping, the 

 tip narrow, the notches obscure ; lower mandible with the 

 angle of moderate length and narrow, the sides convex, the 

 edges inflected, the tip acute ; the gape-line straight. 



The mouth narrow ; both mandibles dee^jly concave within, 

 with a median prominent line ; the palate nearly flat, with two 

 longitudinal prominent lines ; the posterior aperture of the 

 nares oblongo-linear, edged behind with small papilla?. Tongue 

 of moderate length, very narrow, sagittate and papillate at the 

 base, two of the papillae much larger, concave above, horny 

 towards the end, bristly on the edges at the tip, which is 

 slit. The oesophagus is of moderate width, nearly uniform 

 in diameter ; the proventriculus oblong, with short oblong 

 glandules. The stomach of moderate size, elliptical, com- 

 pressed, its lateral muscles moderately thick, the lower not 

 very distinct, the tendons rather large, the cuticular lining 

 tough and longitudinally rugous. The intestine is of mode- 

 rate length and width, of nearly uniform diameter through- 

 out ; the coeca very small ; the cloaca oblong. 



