522 PASSERIFORMES: CHAMAEIDAE CHAP. 
Organ-bird of the Amazons, 7’roglodytes domesticus (aedon), Micro- 
cerculus, and other American forms utter melodious flute-like strains. 
The nest is usually a domed structure of ferns, grass, moss, leaves, 
or even twigs, often lined with hair or feathers, which is placed in 
bushes, hedges, cacti, reeds, and cavities of masonry, or on trees, 
rocks, banks, and the like; Salpinctes, Catherpes, Urocichla and some- 
times Pnoépyga make no covering; Campylorhynchus fashions a large 
purse-like structure, with a long passage for entrance. The eggs 
vary in number from three to nine, and are white, with or with- 
out spots or freckles of red, purplish, or brownish ; in Thryophilus 
pleurostictus they are said to be blue. 
Fam. X. Chamaeidae.—This contains only Chamaea fasciata 
and (. henshawi of California, which by various American 
authorities have been referred to the Wrens or the Tits, though 
not agreeing closely with either. This is the only Family of land 
birds peculiar to the Nearctic Region. In both sexes the lax 
plumage is brown above and buftish below, with faint tail-bars and 
pectoral streaks; the bill is short, straight, and compressed, and 
is furnished with rictal bristles; the metatarsi are stout and nearly 
smooth ; the wings are rounded and concave ; the tail is graduated. 
Chamaca inhabits dry plains and bushy hill-sides, flits about or 
searches for insects with elevated tail, utters a Wren-like trill, 
and builds a nest of twigs and grass in low bushes, adding 
hair or feathers to the lining, and laying three or four pale 
ereenish-blue eggs. 
Fam. XI. Hirundinidae.—The Swallows and Martins compose 
a well-defined cosmopolitan Family, certainly far removed from 
the Swifts (p. 420), with which they used to be joined. The latter 
have ten tail-feathers, and hardly any scutellation on the legs, the 
former twelve rectrices, and an anteriorly scutellated metatarsus. 
The bill is short, broad, and usually much depressed, being notched 
at the tip and split nearly to the eyes. The feet are very small 
and weak, with the middle digit more or less adherent to 
its neighbours; Zachycineta has a stoutish hallux, Chelidon 
feathered toes, and Cotile riparia a tuft at the back of the 
metatarsus. The wings are extremely long and pointed, while 
the exterior margin of the outer primary has hooked barbs in the 
males of Psalidoprocne and Stelgidopteryxz. The tail varies in 
length, and is often very deeply forked, Petrochelidon, Stelgido- 
pteryx, Chelidon dasypus and Psalidoprocne nitens having it excep- 
