400 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



the Rio Grande. The belted king-fisher ( Ceryle alcyori) is at 

 home in California, as well as in all other parts of the conti- 

 nent. 



3 1 9. Fly-catchers. The family of fly-catchers, ( Colopteri- 

 doe) which connects the non-melodious with the true singing 

 birds, is represented in California by eleven species, most of 

 which are not seen in the Atlantic States. They are small 

 birds, from five to nine inches in length, and their colors are 

 usually dull. Most of them have their upper mandible bent 

 down abruptly at the tip ; and they always have twelve feath- 

 ers in the tail. One of the most common and the best-known 

 of the fly-catchers is the bird called the " pewee." 



320. Singers. The zoological sub-order called Oscines, 

 or singers, has one hundred and nine species in our State, in- 

 cluding two mocking-birds, three thrushes^ two blue-birds, 

 three robins, three larks, five black-birds, eleven finches, six 

 wrens, six swallows, six warblers, one martin, one bunting, six 

 titmouses, one snow-bird, two grosbeaks, one cow-bird, one 

 oriole, one crow, three ravens, three jays, one water-ouzel, two 

 magpies, and so on. Some of these birds are not called " sing- 

 ers " in common language, but they all belong to the Oscines 

 sub-order, which is marked by a peculiar muscular apparatus 

 for singing, composed of five pairs of muscles in the throat. 

 Though there are many species of Oscines in the State, yet the 

 birds are not so numerous, so melodious, nor are they heard so 

 often, as the feathered songsters in the Eastern States. The 

 traveler may proceed for days in the Sacramento Basin, during 

 the summer season, without hearing more than a few chirps. 

 Our singing-birds have been multiplying very rapidly of late, 

 because of the settlement and cultivation of the land, whereby 

 their supply of wholesome and palatable food is much in- 

 creased, and their enemies the hawks are driven away. Most 

 of our swallows, one mocking-bird, one black-bird, and one 

 raven, found in California, are also seen east of the Mississippi ; 

 but all our jays, robins, blue- birds, and magpies, and our ori- 



