VIREONIDZ, VIREOS.—GEN. 52. 7 
plumage sombre, variegated on the wings; sexes alike; young spotted, like 
thrushes. 
The birds of thé group thus defined are, as Baird has pointed out, more closely 
related to the Turdide than to the family with which they are usually associated. 
They consist of about a dozen species, mostly of the genus Myiadestes, though 
there are others called Cichlopsis and Platycichla. With one exception, they are 
birds of Central and South America, and the West Indies. Our species, formerly 
called ‘* Ptilogonys,” simply for want of an English name, which I here supply, 
is not to be confounded with the foregoing. It is an exquisite songster. 
52. Genus MYIADESTES Swainson. 
Townsend's Flycatching Thrush. Nearly uniform ashy-gray, sometimes 
paler or mixed with whitish 
on throat, belly, crissum 
and under wing coverts; 
a whitish. ring round the 
eye; quills variegated with 
pale cinnamon or buffy, 
showing as two oblique 
bands in the closed wing ; 
tail blackish, central feath- 
ers like the back, the outer- 
most pair edged and tipped, 
the two next pair tipped, 
with white. The young are 
speckled with round ful- 
Fic. 57. Townsend’s Flycatching Thrush. 
yous spots. Length about Bill and feet of natural size; wings and tail j. 
8; wing and tail about 44. Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, United States. 
Morr, 1, 2d ed., 361; Aup., 1, 243, pl. 69; Bp., 321, and Rev., 429); 
RCO Arne het ee Nc coo on A sf ss - LOWNSENDII. 
Family VIREONIDA. Vireos, or Greenlets. - 
Bill shorter than the head, stout, compressed, distinctly notched and hooked at 
tip; rictus with conspicuous bristles; nostrils exposed, overhung with a scale, but 
reached by the small bristly erect frontal feathers. Toes soldered at base for the 
whole length of the basal joint of the middle one, which is united with the basal 
joint of the inner and the two basal joints of the outer, all these coherent 
phalanges very short. (Lateral toes unequal in the genus Vireo.) Tarsus equal 
to or longer than the middle toe and claw, scutellate in front, laterally undivided, 
except at extreme base. Wings moderate, of ten primaries, of which the first is 
short (one-half to one-fourth the second), or spurious, or apparently wanting (being 
rudimentary and displaced). 
This family was formerly united with the next (Laniide), chiefly on account of 
the resemblance in the shape of the bill of certain species to that of the shrikes ; 
but the likeness is never perfect, and there are other more important characters, 
especially in the structure of the feet, by which the two groups may be discrimi- 
nated. The Vireonide are peculiar to America; they are a small family of five or 
