184 DEGLUL^TRICES. 



Bohemian Chatterer. European "Waxwing. 



Ampelis garrulus, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. 297. Bombyciphora 

 garrula, Temm. Man. d'Ornith. i. 124. Bombycilla garrula, 

 Black-throated Waxwing, MucGillivray, Brit. Birds, iii. 533. 



The birds which form the next ordinal group are all very 

 easily recognised by their stout conical bill. In the struc- 

 ture of their skeleton, wings, feet, and organs of sense, they 

 differ very little from the Cantatrices and Vagatrices, which 

 they further resemble in having four pairs of inferior laryn- 

 geal muscles. Their digestive apparatus is also similar, but 

 with this difference that the oesophagus is dilated into a kind 

 of crop, or rather half-crop, inclining to the right side, and 

 sometimes curving round the neck behind. All our small 

 Finch-like birds belong to this group, to which I ha^e else- 

 where given the name of Huskers, they being in fact, the 

 only birds that remove the shell or husk of seeds in their bill, 

 before swallowing them. The only word that I can nd ex- 

 pressive of this is Dcglubitores, to which a candid critic 

 has been pleased to add another syllable, making it Deglu- 

 bi6^tores. If the reader can find a I jtter term, I will gladly 

 adopt it. 



ORDER VIII. DEGLUBITRICES. HUSKERS. 



Connected with the Larks on the one hand, with the 

 Starlings and Crows on the other, as well as with the 

 Buntings and Finches, is a tribe of birds nearly peculiar 

 to America, and bearing the name of ICTERIN^E : but of 

 which we have no representatives in Britain. Allied to 

 them are the EMBERIZIN^E, or Buntings, which gradually 

 pass into the PASSERINE, or Sparrows ; of both of which 

 we have several species. A fourth group, the TANA- 

 GRIN.E, allied to the last, and in some respects to the Pi- 



