88 ALAUDIDE, LARKS.—GEN. 25. 
25. Genus CISTOTHORUS Cabanis. 
Short-billed Marsh Wren. Dark brown above, crown and middle of 
back blackish, nearly everywhere conspicuously streaked with white; below 
buffy white, shading into pale brown on sides and behind; wings and tail 
barred with blackish and light brown; flanks barred with dusky ; throat and 
middle of belly whitish: 43; wing and tail about 12; bill not 4 long and 
very slender; tarsus and middle toe and claw together about 14. Eastern 
United States, in reedy swamps and marshes, not common. Troglodytes | 
brevirostris. Nurr., i, 431; Aup., ii, 138, pl. 124; Bp., 865. sTELLaris. 
Family ALAUDIDA. Larks. 
A rather small group, well defined by the character of the feet, in adaptation to 
terrestrial life. The subcylindrical tarsi are scutellate and blunt behind as in front, 
with a deep groove along the inner side, and a slight one, or none, on the outer 
face. Other characters (shared, however, with some Motacillide) are the very long, 
straight, hind claw, which equals or exceeds its digit in length; the long, pointed 
wings, with the 1st primary spurious or wanting, and the inner secondaries (‘ terti- 
aries”) lengthened and flowing. The nostrils are usually concealed by dense tufts 
of antrorse feathers: The shape of the bill is not diagnostic, being sometimes 
short, stout and conic, much as in some Fringillidce, while in other genera it is 
slenderer, and more like that of insectivorous Passeres. ‘The family is composed, 
nominally, of a hundred species ; with the exception of one genus and two or three 
species or varieties, it is confined to the Old World. Its systematic position is 
open to question; Lilljeborg removes it from Oscines altogether, probably on 
account of the peculiarities of the podotheca; authors generally place it near the 
Fringillide, perhaps from the resemblance of the bill of some species to that of the 
finches ; but it has many relationships with the Motacillide, and in the arrangement 
of this work I find no better place for it than here, though it has no special affinity 
with the preceding family. Moreover, the fact that it has indifferently nine or ten 
primaries may indicate a natural position between the sets of families in which 
number of primaries is among the diagnostic features. According to shape of bill, 
structure of nostrils, and number of primaries, the family may be divided into two 
subfamilies, the Alaudine, typified by the celebrated skylark of Europe, and the 
Subfamily CALANDRITINA, 
Represented in America by the single genus Hyremophila, of which there are 
nominally ten, really four or five, species. The birds of this genus have the bill com- 
pressed-conoid, shorter than the head, the nostrils densely feathered, and appar- 
ently only nine primaries (though I suspect that a rudimentary 1st primary exists 
in the condition mentioned under Ampelis and Vireo); the point of the wing 
formed by the first three primaries; the tail of medium length and nearly square ; 
and a peculiar little tuft of lengthened feathers over each ear, like the ‘‘ horns” of 
certain owls. They frequent open places, are strictly terrestrial in habits, and 
neyer hop when on the ground, like most Passeres; they are migratory in most 
localities, and gregarious, except when breeding ; nest on the ground, and lay 4-5 
speckled eggs; sing sweetly in the spring time. 
a 
