TURDlDiB. 



Margarops. 



Oreoscoptes. 



wings rounded ; 1st quill more than half the 

 second ; 5th longest. Claws very strong and 

 much curved. Rictal bristles very short . 

 Bill decidedly shorter than the head, scarcely 

 notched ; wings pointed ; 1st quill less than 

 half the second ; 3d and 4th longest. Claws 

 not peculiar. Bristles prominent. Tarsus con- 

 sideralily longer than middle toe and claw 

 6. Wings decideiily shorter than the tail, which is con- ' 



siderably graduated ; lat quill half or more than >j 



half the second. 

 Tail firm, the feathers moderately broad: the ex- 

 terior with outer web near the end, less than 

 one-tl ■ 1 the inner. 

 Bill lengthened ; sometimes much decurved ; no 



notch at tip ....... Ilarporhynchus. 



Bill notched, shorter than head ; straight. 



Bcutellse very distinct 



Scutellse more or less obsolete , . . 

 Tail rather soft : the feathers broad ; the exterior with 

 outer web near the tip rather more than one- 

 third the inner (except in Donncobius), 

 Rictus without any bristles whatever . . . 

 Rictus with well developed bristles 

 Divisions of tarsus mostly obsolete. Rictus well 

 bristled. Lateral tail feathers scarcely more 

 than half the central ; width of its outer web 

 half the inner Donacobius. 



Mi mux. 

 Galeoscoptes. 



ifelattoptila. 

 Melanotis. 



• 



iclus. 



bcyx, 



lis at 



iers. 



Of the family Turdidm, as here given, the genera arc all peculiar 

 to America, with the exception of Tardus; and even here our species 

 belong to sections scarcely if at all represeute^d in the Old World, 

 except by stragglers from the American Continent. 



The sexes are all similar in the American species, except in some 

 divisions of I'urduH, in its most genijral sense. 



A very remarkable pecnliarity of form is observable in some of the 

 species of Oreocincla, an Old AVorld genus of Turdidse, consisting 

 in the possession of more than twelve tail feathers, a character 

 quite unique, I believe, among the land birds.* Sundevall, in a 

 communication on the subject to Cabanis' Journal fiir Ornithologie 

 (1858, 159), gives 0. varia and malaynna as having fourteen tail 

 feathers : the other species twelve. A specimen of O. varia, how- 

 ever, in the Smith;^onian collection, received from the Philadelphia 

 , Academy, and of uncertain locality, has fifteen tail feathers, and has 

 probably lost a sixteenth. 



' See also Cabanis' Museum Heineanum, I, 1850, 6. 



