ICTERIDZ): AMERICAN STARLINGS; BLACKBIRDS, ETC. 399 
parts shading from color of the upper through grayish-olive and olive-gray to sordid whitish, 
purest on the middle of the belly. Inner webs of wing-quills fuscous ; tail the same, but more 
glossed with greenish, and sometimes showing traces of crosswise watering with darker waves, 
as often seen in the song sparrow. Whole bend and lining of wing bright clear yellow. Crown 
like back, with two broad stripes of dull rufous from nostrils to nape; a similar rufous stripe 
behind eye, sometimes traceable past eye to the lore, then defining a superciliary line of light 
olive-gray or whitish. A whitish eye-ring. Upper mandible light brown, lower drying 
yellowish ; feet pale. Length 6.25-6.75 (not 5.50, as in Baird); extent 8.50-9.00; wing 
2.40-2.75 ; tail the same; bill 0.50; tarsus 0.90; middle toe and claw 0.75. @ said to differ 
immaterially, and young to lack the head-stripes. Young, first plumage: Above, mixed brown 
and olive-tawny; wings brown, edged with olive, the coverts edged and tipped with tawny ; 
breast like back; belly tawny. Texas, in Lower Rio Grande Valley. Inhabits shrubbery, 
chaparral, and close cover of all kinds, where it is difficult to discover, owing to its quiet ways 
and greenish tints. Keeps near the ground, but builds a domed nest of twigs and grasses in 
bushes and low trees; two broods are reared in May—June, and Aug.—Sept. Eggs 2-4, pure 
white, unmarked, averaging 0.85 x 0.65, but from 0.75-0.90 by 0.60-0.70. 
17. Family ICTERIDA: American Starlings: Blackbirds, etc. 
Cultrirostral Oscines with 9 prima 
ries. — A family of moderate extent, 
confined to America, where it repre- 
sents the Stwrnide, or Starlings of ™ 
the Old World. It consists of the 
Blackbirds and Orioles, among the 
former being included the Bobolinks, 
Cow-birds, and Meadow “ Larks.” 
It is nominally composed of 150 
species, half of which may prove 
valid, distributed among 50 genera 
or subgenera, of which one-fourth 
may be considered worthy of reten- 
tion. The relatiouships are very close 
with the Fringillide, on the one~ 
= 2 hand; on the other, they grade 
Fia. 256. — A typical Icterus I. bullocki). (After Audubon). toward the Crows (Corvide). They — 
share with Fringilline birds the characters of angulated commissure and 9 developed pri- 
maries, and this distinguishes them from all the other families whatsoever; but the distine- 
tions from the Frringillide are not easily expressed. In fact, I know of no character that 
will relegate the Bobolink and Cowbird to the Jcteride rather than to the Fringillide, 
in the current acceptation of these terms. In general, however, the Icterid@ are cultrirostral 
rather than strictly conirostral Oscines, having that cutting rather than crushing style of 
bill seen in perfection in the crows, toward which some of the Icteride approach ; being thus 
distinguished by the length, acnteness, and not strictly conical shape of the unnotched, 
unbristled bill, which has a peculiar extension of the culmen on the forehead dividing the 
prominent antiz of close-set velvety feathers that reach to or on the nasal scale — a character 
well exhibited in Stwrnella, for instance. In length, the bill usually equals if it does not exceed 
the head; the tip is unnotched, the rictus unbristled, the commissure obtusely but evidently 
angulated. The bill is shortest and most fringilline in Dolichonyx and Molothrus ; most acute 
in the Orioles (Icterus), where it is sometimes actually decurved; most crow-like in the 
