375. 
376. 
P21. 
456 SYSTEMATIC SYNOPSIS. — PASSERES — CLAMATORES. 
cinerescens. The general body-coloration is almggt exactly as in cimerescens, from which it is 
at once distinguished by the different shape of th@ill and different pattern of the tail-feathers. 
Azreeing very closely in colors with cooperi, it is smaller than that species, and lacks in par- 
ticular the enormous development of the bill, which, in coopert, is an inch or more in length of 
culmen, and proportionately broad. It is clearly neither crimitus proper, nor erinitus coopert, nor 
yet cinerescens. Average length 8.75; extent about 12.75; wing 3.60-4.00; tail 3.75; bill 
0.75; tarsus 0.85; middle toe and claw 0.75. Lower Rio Grande of Texas, and southward. 
Common, breeding. Nest and eggs like those of erimitus. (MM. crimtus var. irritabilis, Coues, 
Pr. Phila. Acad., 1872, p. 65, nee Tyrannus wrritabilis Vieill. M. erinitus erythrocercus, Coues, 
Bull. U. S. Geol. Surv., iv, 1878, p. 82, and v, 1879, p. 402. I. mexicanus var. cooperi, 
Ridg., Pr. Nat. Mus., i, p. 188, nee coopert Bd. M. mexicanus, Ridg., Pr. Nat. Mus., ii, 
p- 14.) 
M. cineres/cens. (Lat. cimerescens, ashy. Fig. 285.) ASH-THROATED CRESTED FLy- 
CATCHER. @@, adult: Rather olivaceous-brown above, quite brown on the head; throat 
very pale ash, sometimes almost whitish, changing 
gradually to very pale yellow or yellowish-white on 
the rest of the under parts. Primaries edged as in 
crinitus, but secondaries and coverts edged with gray- 
ish-white. Tail-feathers as in erinitus, but the rufous 
of the inner webs hardly or not reaching their ends, 
being cut off from the tip by widening of the fuscous 
stripe (im young birds, in which the quills and tail- 
feathers are more extensively rufous-edged, the last dis- 
tinction does not hold). Size of crinitus, but tarsi 
longer and bill slenderer; tarsi 0.80-0.90; bill 0.75- 
0.85, but only 0.27-0.33 broad at the base, where only 
about as wide as high, and obviously narrower than in 
crinitus; though in Cape St. Lucas specimens (MM. 
pertinaz Bd.) shaped quite as in erinitus, but smaller. 
Wie. ob) Asl-throated. “Flycatcher. Southwestern U. 8.; N. to Wyoming and Utah and 
reduced. (Sheppard del. Nichols sc.) Nevada; 8. through Mexico; E. and W. from Texas 
to the Pacific; said to winter in the Lower Colorado valley, U.S. Though so similar to the 
foregoing, it is a different bird from any of them. Nesting and eggs as in the others. (I. 
mexicanus Bd., 1858, nee Kaup, 1851. Zyrannula cinerascens, Lawr., 1851. MM. einerescens 
Coues, 1872.) 
M. lawren/cii. (To Geo. N. Lawrence.) LAWRENCE’S CRESTED FLYCATCHER. Similar in 
color to M. crinitus, but much smaller. No chestnut on tail-feathers except a narrow border- 
ing on the outer webs, and, in the young, an inner margimng also. Wing-coverts and inner 
secondaries as well as the primaries edged with rufous (rarely yellowish on inner secondaries) ; 
pilewm dark or quite blackish. Bill broad, flat, shaped much as in Contopus, about 3 its own 
length wide at the nostrils. Very small: length 7.00 or less; wing and tail only 3.00-3.33 ; 
bill 0.62-0.70; tarsus 0.65-0.75. Texas (?), Mexico, and Central Am., there running into 
M. nigricapillus. 
SAYIORNIS. (Name of Thos. Say, with Gr. pus, ornis, a bird.) PEwir FLYCATCHERS. 
The 3 following species do not particularly resemble each other ; most authors place them in 
separate genera, and some even under different subfamilies, of Zyrannide. The discrepancies 
of form, however, are not startling, and for the purposes of this work the species may be properly 
put together, as they agree in presenting a certain aspect not shown by the other N. Am. 
groups. (Fig. 280, b.) They are small species, about 7.00 or less in length. Head with a 
slight crest of erectile feathers. Tarsus rather longer than middle toe and claw (the reverse 
