Appendix, 



172. , The American Dipper or Water Ouzel; 

 Cinclus mexicanus Swains. 



Length about eight inches. Bill long and slender; 

 tail very short. General color slaty grayish, 

 changing to brownish on the head. In winter 

 plumage mottled, with white edgings to the 

 feathers. An inhabitant of mountain streams in 

 which it dives like a water bird. 



THE WREN AND THRASHER FAMILY. 



This family includes many birds which were for- 

 mally classified under different headings, such as 

 the mockingbird, the sage thrasher, and the 

 various groups of wrens. They are all dull 

 brown or gray birds, generally fine vocalists, 

 with long, slender bills, frequently curving. 

 They dwell, for the most part, in low shrub- 

 bery, where they find their insect food. 



^73* ^^g^ Thrasher; Sage Thrush; Mountain 

 Mockingbird; Oroscoptes montanus (Towns.). 



Size a little smaller than a mockingbird (about 

 nine inches). General appearance like a thrush. 

 Above plain brownish gray, below whitish 

 tinged on sides with buff and spotted with dis- 

 tinct dusky wedge-shaped markings. Wings 

 and tail edged with white, the former with two 

 white bars, the latter with two outer featners 

 tipped with white. A bird of the desert and 

 sage-brush region of ttie southwest. North, 

 chiefly on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada 

 Mountains 



