AMPELID^ — AMPELIN.E : WAXWINGS. 325 



55. PROG'NE. (Gr. UpoKvri, Procne, a mythological character.) Of large size and robust form 

 for this family. Bill long and stout, with much-curved commissure and deflected tip; culmen 

 convex, its tomial edge concavo-convex like 'i^v . Nostrils circular, opening upward, without 

 nasal scale. Feet large, with strong, much-curved claws ; tarsus shorter than middle toe and 

 claw ; lateral toes about equalling each other in length ; basal joint of middle toe freer from 

 lateral toes than usual. Tail forked. Sexes dissimilar. Eggs colorless. 



165. P. sul>is. (Lat. subis, name of an unknown bird.) Purple Martin. ^, adult: Intense 

 histrous steel-blue. Wings and tail blackish, with bluish lustre. Bill black ; feet blackish. 

 Length 7.50 inches; extent 15.50; wing 5.50-6.00; tail 3.00-3.50, forked ; bill 0.50, very 

 stout, broad at the base, somewhat decurved at the end ; nostrils circular, exposed, opening 

 upward. 9 '• Dark grayish-brown, glossed on the back and head witli steel-blue. Wings 

 and tail fuscous, paler on the inner webs, with narrow gray edgings. Beneath, whitish, shaded 

 with dark gray in most parts, the feathers very generally with dusky shaft-line. Young birds 

 of both sexes resemble the adult female, though the young males are rather darker. The steel- 

 blue appears at first in patches. U. S. and adjoining British Provinces, abundant and gener- 

 ally distributed ; breeds throughout its range, usually in the East in boxes provided for its 

 accommodatitm, in the West in holes in trees. 



13. Family AMPELID^ : Chatterers. 



This appears to be an arbitrary and unnatural association of a few genera that agree in 

 some particulars, but are widely difierent in others. The composition and position of the group 

 differ with almost every writer; some place it in Clamatores, next to the Tyrannidce. I think 

 that the family should be dismembered ; the Myiadestince are near the true Thrushes, and 

 doubtless the other two subfamilies here presented may be properly dissociated. 



Birds of the three following genera agree in this character : Bill short, broad, flattened, 

 plainly notched at tip, with wide rictus, and culmen or gonys hardly or not exceeding half tlie 

 length of the commissure; basal phalanx of middle toe joined with outer toe for about two- 

 thirds its length, and to inner toe for about half its length. The three, considered separately, 

 may be readily and precisely defined. 



18. 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. 

 5Q. AM'PELIS. (Gr. dfineXli, Lat. ampelis, name of a bird.) Waxvpings. Bill short, broad, 

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

 the convex culmen and gonys less than half as long as the nearly straight commissure, the 

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

 with short, erect or antrorse, and close-set velvety feathers; nostrils narrowly elliptical, over- 

 arched by a (feathered) scale. Rictal vibrissa few and short. Wings long and pointed, much 

 longer than the tail, their point formed by the 3d primary, closely supported by the 2d and 4th, 

 the 5th abruptly shorter and the rest rapidly graduated. Primaries 10, but the 1st spurious, so 

 very short as readily to escape observation, and sometimes displaced to the outer side of the 2d 

 primary, — a condition like that seen among the 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 the wing. Feet rather weak ; tarsus shorter 

 than the middle toe and claw, distinctly scutellate with five or six divisions anteriorly and some- 

 wliat receding from strict Oscine character by subdivision of the lateral plates. Lateral toes of 

 nearly equal lengths, the ends of their claws scarcely reaching the base of the middle claw ; 

 hallux about as long as the inner lateral toe. Basal phalanx of middle toe coherent witli outer 



