384 



SYSTEMA TIC SYNOPSIS. —PASSERES —OVCINES. 



C. mcgreg'ori. (To R. C McGregor, of Palo Alto, Cal.) McGi.egor's House Fixch. 

 Nearest C. ampins; slightly smaller, with more compressed, somewhat grooved bill, and longer 

 tail ; red of $ replaced by orange. San Benito Island, Lower California. Anthony, Auk, 

 Apr. 1897, p. 165, fig. h; A. 0. U. Suppl. List, Auk, Jan. 1899, p. 114, No. 520. 1. 

 LOX'IA. (Gr. \o^6si loxos, crooked.) Crossbills. Bill metagnuthoiis ; both mandibles 

 falcate, deflected to opposite sides, their points crossed (unique among birds). Upper mandible 



stout and broad at base, rapidly narrow- 

 ing to the elongate, decurved, laterally de- 

 flected and overhanging tip, its sides nearly 

 flat, culminal ridge well marked and very 

 s;X con vex throughout ; its base beset with a 



ruff of antrorse plumules concealing nostrils 



and nasal fossae. Lower mandible with 



ij^"^'^*^^ gonys very long, occupying nearly all the 



'^v^ I " ^'^^'^^^fe^ exposed part of bill, convex throughout, 



" ^ ^^- /^^ end of mandible prolonged, curved upward 



^^^^JK^^^ x"" ^^ and deflected to one side. Commissural 



~"^~ ~ /^ ^ ~ line of either mandible curved in the op- 



-J*^'"^" _, ^^psr- posite direction from its fellow. Mouth 



^^f^ very narrow anteriorly, ample at base; 



Fig. 243. — white-wiiiir,-,! Ciussbiu, reduced. (After Au- tougue horny and concave at end; u?soph- 



dubon.) .11 .1 11. 



agus with a large special crop, bulging to 

 the right side. Wings long, pointed by tips of first three primaries, rest rapidly graduated. 

 Tail very short, only about § as long as wing, eniarginate and divaricate, covered nearly to 

 the fork by coverts both above and below. Feet small ; tarsus shorter than middle toe with- 

 out claw ; covered with 3 or 4 large overlapping plates, and smaller ones above and below ; 

 postero-lateral plates much broken up below. Latei'al toes of subequal lengths, tips of their 

 claws falling opposite base of middle claw. Hind claw about equal to its digit, longer, stouter, 

 and more curved than middle one. Form stout, thick-set ; neck short ; head broad and flat- 

 tened on top. Plumage soft and blended. Sexes dissimilar in color. $ red, 9 brown with 

 olive or yellowish tinge. There are several species of these singular Finches, in which not 

 only the horny envelop of the beak, but the bony framework, and to some extent the liga- 

 ments and muscles acting upon it, are unsymmetrical. The conformation is only completed at 

 maturity, for in nestlings the points of the bill are not crossed. The structures concerned in 

 what would appear at first sight to be a deformity constitute a handy tool for cracking nuts of 

 some kinds and shelling out their kernels ; it acts like a pair of cutting pliers, — pincers and 

 scissors in one, — and the tongue comes into play at the same time as a scoop to secure the seed 

 or pip thus exposed in a pine-cone or fleshy fruit. Our two species inhabit the northern parts 

 of America, coming southward in flocks in the fall ; but they are also resident in northern and 

 mountainous parts of the U. S., where they sometimes breed in winter. They are irregularly 

 migratory according to exigencies of weather and food-supply; are eminently gregarious, and 

 feed principally upon pine seeds, which they skilfully husk out of the cones with their curious 

 bills. 



Annli/si.i of Species and Subspecies. 



Wings with two white bars, (f rosy-red ; $ brownish-olive, streaked and spotted with dusky, the rump saffron- 

 yellow leucoptera 



Wings without bars, cf bricky-red. 9 as before, without wing-bars. 



Bill small, about j of an inch long curvirostrn minor 



Bill large, J-J of an inch long stricklandi 



