TURDID^. 



wings rounded ; 1st quill more than half the 

 second ; 5th longest. Claws very strong and 

 much curved. Rictal bristles very short . 

 Bill decidedly shorter than the head, scarcely 

 notched ; wings pointed ; 1st quill less than 

 half the second ; 3d and 4th longest. Claws 

 not peculiar. Bristles prominent. Tarsus con- 

 siderably longer than middle toe and claw 

 5. Wings decidedly shorter than the tail, which is con- 

 siderably graduated ; 1st quill lialf or more than 

 half the second. 

 Tail firm, the feathers moderately broad : the ex- 

 terior with outer web near the end, less than 

 one-third the inner. 

 Bill lengthened ; sometimes much decurved ; no 

 notch at tip ....... 



Bill notched, shorter than head ; straight. 



ScutellcB very distinct ..... 



Scutellse more or less obsolete 

 Tail rather soft : the feathers broad ; the exterior with 

 outer web near the tip rather more than one- 

 third the inner (except in Donacobius'). 

 Rictus without any bristles whatever . 

 Rictus with well developed bristles 

 Divisions of tarsus mostly obsolete. Rictus well 

 bristled. Lateral tail feathers scarcely more 

 than lialf the central; width of its outer web 

 half the inner ....... 



Margarops. 



Oreoscoptes. 



Harporhynchus. 



Mimus. 



Galeoscoptes. 



Melanoptila. 

 Melanotis. 



Donacobius. 



Of the family Turdidse, as here given, the genera are all peculiar 

 10 America, with the exception of Turclus; and even here our species 

 belong to sections scarcely if at all represented in the Old World, 

 except by stragglers from the American Continent. 



The sexes are all similar in the American species, except in some 

 divisions of Turdus, in its most general sense. 



A very remarkable peculiarity of form is observable in some of the 

 species of Oreocmcla, an Old World genus of Turdidse, consisting 

 in the possession of more than twelve tail feathers, a character 

 quite unique, I believe, .among the land birds.* Sundevall, in a 

 communication on the subject to Cabanis' Journal fiir Ornithologie 

 (1858, 159), gives 0. varia and malayana as having fourteen tail 

 feathers : the other species twelve. A specimen of 0. varia, how- 

 ever, in the Smithsonian collection, received from the Philadelphia 

 Academy, and of uncertain locality, has fifteen tail feathers, and has 

 probably lost a sixteenth. 



' See also Cabanis' Museum Heineanum, I, 1850, 6. 



