LIST AND EXPLANATION OF PLATES. 



Frontispiece. Centronyx Baird'n, Baird. — Baird's Sparrow, 

 taken at Ipswich, Mass. 



Plate I.* Instruments used in preparing birds, etc., and for 

 blowing eggs. Fig. 1, Common Pliers; Fig. 2, Cutting Pliers ; Fig. 

 3, Tweezers ; Fig. 4, Scalpel ; B'igs. 5 and 6, Egg-drills ; Fig. 7, 

 Blow-pipe ; Fig. 8, Hook for removing embryos from eggs. 



Plate II. — Wings, showing the positions of the different feathers, 

 as follows : — 



Fig. 1. Wing of a Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo borealis, Vieill.). — 

 a indicates the primaries, or quills ; b, secondaries ; c, tertiaries ; 

 d, scapularies ; g, greater wing-coverts ; f, lesser wing-coverts ; e, spuri- 

 ous wing, or quills. 



Fig. 2. Wing oj a Coot, or Mud Hen [FuUca Americana, Gmelin). — ^ 

 a indicates the primaries, or quills ; b, secondaiies ; c, tertiaries ; 

 d, scapularies ; e, spurious Aving, or quills. 



The tertiaries and scapularies are elongated in most of the aquatic 

 birds, and in some of the Waders. They are a/tvai/s prominent, if not 

 elongated, on long-winged birds, such as the Eagles, Hawks, Owls, 

 Vultures, etc. ; while they are only rudimentary on short-winged birds, 

 such as the Thrushes, Warblers, Sparrows, etc. 



Plate III. Head of the Bald Eagle (Halicetus leiicocephalus, 

 Savigny), showing the different parts, as follows: — a, the throat; 

 b, chin ; c, commissure, or the folding edges of the mandibles ; d, 

 under mandible; s, gonys; p, gape; g, upper mandible; h, culmen ; 

 i, tip; j, base of bill; k, cere (naked skin at the base of the upper 

 mandible, prominent in the rapacious birds); 1, frontal feathers; 

 m, lores ; n, crown ; o, occiput. 



• Plates I., IV., v., VI., VIII., IX., X., and the frontispiece will be more fully 

 explained hereafter. 



