260 SrSTEMA TIC SYNOPSIS. — PASSERES — OSCINES. 



Solitaire. ^ 9 : General color dull brownish-ash, paler below, bleaching on throat, lower 

 belly, and crissum. Wings blackish ; inner secondaries edged and tipped with white, nearly 

 all the quills extensively tawny or fulvous at tlie base, and several intermediate ones again 

 edged externally toward their ends with the same color. In the closed wing, the basal tawny 

 shows upon the outside as an oblique spot in the recess between the greater coverts and the 

 bastard quills, separated by an oblique bar of blackish from the second tawny patch on the 

 outer webs of the quills near their ends. Tail like wings (the middle pair of feathers more 

 nearly like the back) ; outer feather edged and broadly tipped, next one more uarrowly tipped, 

 with white. A white ring around eye. Bill and feet black. Eyes brown. Length about 

 8.00; wing and tail about equal, 4.00-4.50; the latter forked centrally, graduated laterally; 

 biU 0.50 ; tarsus 0.75 ; middle toe and claw rather more. Young : speckled at first, like a 

 very young Thrush; each feather with a triangular or rounded spot of dull ochraceous or 

 tawny, edged with blackish. Western U. S., from eastern foot-hills of the Rocky Mts. to the 

 Pacific ; N. to British Columbia and upper Yukon, S. to Sonora and L. Cala. ; breeds from 

 New Mexico, Arizona, and Southern California northward. A bird not less strange and unlike 

 anything seen in the East than Phainopepla : inhabiting woodland and shrubbery, feeding on 

 insects and berries, and capable of musical expression in an exalted degree. Nest on ground or 

 in rubbish near it, loosely made of grasses ; eggs 3 to 6, bluish-white, freckled with reddish- 

 brown, 0.95 X 0.67. 



Family CINCLID.^ : Dippers, 



Primaries 10; Jst spurious, and, like the others, falcate; 2d entering into point of wing; 

 wing short, stiff, rounded, concavo-convex. Tail still shorter than wing, soft, square, of 12 

 broad, rounded feathers, almost hidden by the coverts, which reach nearly or quite to the end, 

 the under ones especially long and full. Tarsus booted, about as long as middle toe and claw. 

 Lateral toes equal in length. Claws all strongly curved. Bill shorter than head, slender and 

 compressed throughout, higher than broad at nostrils, about straight, but seeming to be slightly 

 recurved, owing to a sort of upward tilting of the superior mandible ; culmen at first slightly 

 concave, then convex ; commissure slightly sinuous, to correspond with culnieu, notched near 

 end ; gonys convex. Nostrils linear, opening beneath a large scale partly covered with featli- 

 ers. No rictal vibrissse. nor any trace of bristles or bristle-tipped feathers about nostrils. 

 Plumage soft, lustreless, remarkably full and compact, water-proof. Body stout, thick-set. 

 Habits aquatic. A small but remarkable group, in which characters shared by the Turdidcs 

 and Sylviidce are modified in adaptation to the singular aquatic life the species lead. There is 

 only one genus, with about 12 species, inhabiting clear mountain streams of most parts of the 

 world, chiefly the Northern Hemisphere ; easily flying under water, and spending much of 

 their time in that element, where their food, of various aquatic animal substances, is gleaned. 

 (Subfamily Cinclinee of former eds. of the Key, now raised to family rank.) 

 CIN'CLUS. (Gr. Kt'yKXo?, kigklos, Lat. cindus, a kind of bird. Fig. 114.) Dippers. Char- 

 acters those of the family, as abfive given. 



C. luexica'nus. (Lat. mexicanus, Mexican. American Dipper, or Water Ouzel. ^ 9 , 

 adult, in summer: Slaty-plumbeous, paler below, inclining on the head to sooty-brown. 

 Quills and tail-feathers fuscous. Eyelids usually white. Bill black ; feet yellowish. Length 

 6.00-7.00; extent 10.00-11.00; wing 3.50-4.00; tail about 2.25; bill 0.60; tarsus 1.12; 

 middle toe and claw rather less. Individuals vary much in size. ^ 9 > i'l winter, and most 

 immature specimens, are still paler below, all the feathers of the under parts being skirted 

 with whitish ; quills of the wing also tipped with white ; bill yellowish at base. Young : 

 Below, whitish, more or less so according to age, frequently tinged with pale cinnamon-brown; 

 whole under parts sometimes overlaid with whitish ends of tlie feathers, shaded with rufous 



