]38 COCCYZUS AMERICANUS. 



quill is longest, the second and fifth are nearly equal, and the 

 first is as long as the seventh. The lateral tail-feathers are 

 two inches and a quarter shorter than the middle. 



The upper mandible is brownish-black, its basal margins 

 and nearly the whole of the lower mandible yellow, of which 

 colour also is the bare space about the eye. The iris is hazel, 

 the tarsi and toes are greyish-blue, the claws black. The gene- 

 ral colour of the upper parts is light greenish-brown, the head 

 tinged with grey ; that of the lower greyish or silvery white, 

 the inner webs of the quills are brownish-orange. The tail- 

 feathers, the two middle excepted, which are coloured like the 

 back, are brownish -black, tipped with white, of which colour 

 is nearly the whole outer web of the lateral feathers. 



Length to end of tail 12h inches ; extent of wings 16 ; bill 

 along the ridge i^| ; along the edge of lower mandible 1 ^% ; 

 wing from flexure 5^% ; tail 5/^ ; tarsus 1 ; hind toe j%, its 

 claw I'g ; second toe j\^ its claw j% ; fourth toe j\, its claw 

 j% ; fifth toe 11, its claw {Vj. 



Female. — The female resembles the male in colour, and is 

 little inferior in size. One which I examined for Mr Audubon 

 had the oesophagus three inches and seven twelfths long, six 

 twelfths wide at the commencement, gradually diminishing to 

 four twelfths ; the proventriculus five twelfths in breadth ; the 

 stomach very large, broadly elliptical, compressed, an inch and 

 two twelfths long, one inch in breadth ; its walls extremely 

 thin, its muscular coat being formed of a single series of small 

 fasciculi. Being distended with remains of insects, and a great 

 quantity of hairs, it seemed to occupy almost the whole cavity 

 of the abdomen beyond the sternum. The inner coat, or epi- 

 thelium was soft, destitute of rugae, red, and stuck over with 

 some of the same kind of hairs as those intermixed with the 

 remains of the insects. The proventricular glands large, cylin- 

 drical, forming a belt about nine twelfths broad. The pylorus 

 extremely small, with a thickened margin ; the intestine four- 

 teen inches and three quarters long, its width from three and 

 a quarter twelfths to two and a half twelfths ; the coeca one 

 inch and eight twelfths long, oblong, narrow at the commence- 



