358 



SYSTEMA TIC SYNOPSIS. — PASSERES— OSCINES. 



Subfamily AMPELIN/E: Waxwings. 



Of this subfamily, as here restricted, there is only one genus with three species — one of 

 Europe, Asia, and America, one of Asia and Japan, one peculiar to America. 

 AM'PEJLIS. (Gr. a/uTreXis, Lat. ampelis, name of a bird.) Waxwings. Bill, short, broad, 

 flat, rather obtuse, plainly notched near tip of each mandible, with wide and deeply-cleft gape ; 

 convex culmen and gonys less than half as long as tlie nearly straight commissure ; width of 

 rictus more than two-thirds the length of gape. Nasal fossae broad, but filled with short, 

 erect or antrorse, and close-set, velvety feathers ; nostrils narrowly elliptical, overarched by a 

 (feathered) scale. Rictal vibrisste few and short. Wings long and pointed, much longer than 

 tail, their point formed by 3d primary, closely supported by 2d and 4th, 5th abruptly shorter, 

 the rest rapidly graduated. Primaries 10, but 1st spurious, so very short as readily to escape 



Fig. 214 — Bohemian Waxwings, 



observation, and sometimes displaced to the outer side of the 2d, — a condition like that seen 

 among Vireos. Inner quills, as a rule, and sometimes the tail-feathers, tipped with curious 

 red horny appendages, like sealing-wax. Tail short, narrow, even, two-thirds or less of the 

 length of wing. Feet rather weak ; tarsus shorter than middle toe and claw, distinctly scu- 

 tellate with five or six divisions anteriorly and somewhat receding from strict Oscine character 

 by subdivision of the lateral plates. Lateral toes of nearly equal lengths ; ends of their claws 

 scarcely reaching base of middle claw ; hallux about as long as inner lateral toe. Basal 

 phalanx of middle toe coherent with outer toe for about two-thirds its length, with inner toe 

 for about half its length. Body stout. Head conspicuously crested. Plumage peculiarly soft, 



