TURDID®. 5 
wings rounded; Ist quill more than half the 
second; 5th longest. Claws very strong and 
much curved. Rictal bristles very short . - Margarops. 
Bill decidedly shorter than the head, scarcely 
notched; wings pointed; Ist quill less than 
half the second; 3d and dth longest. Claws 
not peculiar. Bristles prominent. Tarsus con- 
siderably longer than middle toe and claw - Orcoscoptes. 
5. Wings decidedly shorter than the tail, which is con- 
siderably graduated ; 1st quill half 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. - : 0 : é . LHarporhynchus. 
Bill notched, shorter than head; straight. 
Scutelle very distinct . c 5 Z - Minus. 
Scutelle2 more or less obsolete. 4 - Galeoscoptes. 
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 . 5 - Melanoptila. 
Rictus with well developed bristles. : - Melanotis. 
Divisions of tarsus mostly obsolete. Rictus well 
bristled. Lateral tail feathers scarcely more 
than half the central; width of its outer web 
half the inner . 3 . : q _ - Donacobius. 
Of the family Zurdidex, as here given, the genera are all peculiar 
to America, with the exception of Zurdus; 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 Oreocincla, an Old World genus of Turdide, consisting 
in the possession of more than twelve tail feathers, a character 
quite unique, I believe, among the land birds.t | Sundevall, in a 
communication on the subject to Cabanis’ Journal fiir Ornithologie 
(1858, 159), gives O. varia and malayana as having fourteen tail 
feathers: the other species twelve. A specimen of O. 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. 
1 See also Cabanis’ Museum Heineanum, J, 1850, 6. 
