304 



SrSTEMA TIC SYNOPSIS. — PASSERES — OSCINES. 



streaking of the upper parts is strong and sharp, and the under parts acquire a ruddy-brown 

 shade. Young : Edgings of feathers of upper parts buffy, giving a rich coinjjlexion to the 

 plumage ; feathers of back with pure white edging, fonniug conspicuous semicircular mark- 

 ings ; greater wing-coverts and long inner secondaries broadly tipped with wliite ; primaries 

 broadly edged and tipped with white or buflf. Ear-coverts buffy-brown, forming a more con- 

 spicuous patch than in the adult. Under parts strongly tinged, except on throat and middle of 

 belly, with buffy-brown, the pectoral and lateral streaks large and diffused. Sexes indistin- 

 guishable ; 9 rather smaller than ^. Length 6.25-6.75, rarely 7.00; extent 10.00-11.00, 

 generally about 10.50, rarely 11.50 ; wing 3.00-3.30; tail 2.25-2.40; bill 0.50 ; tarsus 0.80- 

 6.90; middle toe and claw 0.90; hind toe and claw nearly 1.00, the claw alone about 0.50. 

 Central portions of the U. S., and adjoining British Provinces, from E. edge of the high 

 Central Plains to the Rocky Mts., from the valleys of the Red River of the North and of the 

 Saskatchewan to Texas and the table lands of Mexico ; accidental in South Carolina ; breeding 

 in profusion in Dakota and Montana ; nest on the ground, of fine dried grasses, sometimes 

 arched over; eggs 4-5, 0.90 X 0.60, grayish-white minutely flecked with dark tints, giving a 

 purplish-brown cast. General habits and manners of Titlarks ; but the soaring flight of the 

 Sky Pipit when singing, and the song itself, possess all the qualities which have made the 

 European Skylark famous, and are no less worthy of celebration in poetry : see Birds of 

 the N. W., 1874, p. 42. 



Family MNIOTILTID^ : American Warblers. 



(Commonly called Sylvicolid.e.) 



Primaries 9; rectrices 12; tarsi scutellate; inner secondaries not enlarged, nor hind toe 

 lengthened and straightened, as in the preceding family; bill without a lobe or tooth near mid- 

 dle of commissure, as in Piranga ; not strongly toothed and hooked at end, as in Lanius and 



Vireo (which may have 10 

 primaries), nor greatly flat- 

 tened with gape reaching 

 to eyes, as in Hirundi- 

 nida, nor strictly conical 

 with angulated commis- 

 sure, as in Fringillida. 

 The family presents such 

 a number of minor modi- 

 fications of form, that it 

 seems impossible to char- 

 acterize it, except nega- 

 tively ; in fact, it has never 

 been satisfactorily defined. 

 But doubtless the student 

 will be able to assure him- 

 self that his specimen is 

 sylvicoline by its not 

 Fig. 163. — Black-throated Green Warbler, nat. size. (Ad. nat. del. E. C.) showing the peculiarities 



of our other nine-primaried Oscines. All the Warblers are small birds ; excepting Icteria, and 

 perhaps a species of Siurus, not one is over 6.00 long, and they hardly average over 5.00. With 

 few exceptions they are beautifully clothed in variegated colors ; but the sexes are generally 

 unlike, and the changes of plumage, with age and season of the year, are usually strongly 

 marked, so that different specimens of the same species may bear to each other but little 



