360 SYRNIA PASSERINA. 



tially concealed by bristle-like feathers, having a few 

 bai'bs at their base. The claws are strong, tapering, 

 little curved, compressed ; the first and fourth, which 

 are nearly equal in size and smaller than the rest, are 

 rounded beneath, the second flattened but narrow, the 

 third convex, with a thin inner edge, both much larger 

 and nearly equal. 



The nostrils are round, with two laminfe passing in- 

 wards from their outer edge, and covered above by a 

 singular bulging projection of the cere, which is very 

 short. The conch of the ear is an oval space five- 

 twelfths of an inch long, and three-twelfths broad ; in 

 the lower part of which is the oval aperture or meatus, 

 and which is destitute of operculum, being merely mar- 

 gined with feathers all round. 



The facial disk is incomplete, being interrupted over 

 the eye. The feathers at the base of the bill laterally 

 are long, with bristle tips, and nearly conceal that or- 

 gan ; the lower part of the disk is narrow, but the hind 

 part is large, and assumes the usual appearance of the 

 ear-coverts of many other birds. The ruif is very in- 

 complete and inconspicuous, the feathers being a little 

 more curved than the rest. The feathers of the head are 

 small, oblong, rounded, those of the back of the same 

 form, but large and rather compact. Those of the low- 

 er parts are very soft and downy. The wings are long 

 and rounded ; the primary quills broad and rounded ; 

 the first three deeply sinuate on the inner web, the se- 

 cond, third, and fourth, distinctly so on the outer ; the 

 first with the tips of the barbs recurved on its outer 

 edge, the second and third with the tips of their outer 

 barbs less distinctly recurved to beyond the sinus ; the 



