280 SYSTEM A TIC SYNOPSIS. — PA SSERES — OSCINES. 



26. CISTOTHO'RUS. (Gr. KiWof, /cistos, a shrub ; ^oipor, i/iowros, leaping.) Marsh Wrens. 



Like Telmatodytes ; wliolc back and crown streaked with white. Bill scarcely or not one-half 



as long as head. Eggs white. 



81. C. stella'ris. (Lat. sieHarts, starry ; i. e., speckled. Fig. 1.52.) Short-billed Marsh Wren. 



Upper parts brown, the crown and most of the back blackish, streaked with white. Below, 



whitish, shaded with clear brown across the breast and along 

 the sides, and especially on the flanks and crissura, the latter 

 more or less indistinctly barred with dusky (often inappreci- 

 able). A whitish line over tlie eye. Wings and tail marked 

 as in the last species. Upper tail-coverts decidedly barred. 

 Bill blackish above, whitish below, extremely small, scarcely 

 half as long as the head; feet brown. Length 4.50; extent 

 5.75-6.00; wing and tail each about 1.75; bill 0.35-0.40; 

 Fig. 153. — Sliort-bllled Marsh tarsus, middle toe, and claw together, about 1.12. The streak- 

 Wren, nat. size. (Ad nat. del. E. C.) j^g ,jf tj^e head and that of the back are usually separated 

 by a plain nuchal interval; but these are as often run together, the whole bird above being 

 streaked with whitLsh and blackish upon a brown ground. The wings, tail, and entire under 

 parts are much like those of T. palustris, from which the species is distinguished by the mark- 

 ings of the upper parts and extremely short bill. Chiefly Eastern U. S. and adjoining British 

 Provinces ; W. to Utah. Migratory ; winters in the Southern States. Frequents marshy 

 places bke T. palustris, but is not common. Nesting different, and eggs white. 



7. Family ALAUDID^ : Larks. 



A rather small group, well defined by the character of the feet, in adaptation to terrestrial 

 life. The subcylindrical tarsi are scutellate and blunt behind as in fi-ont, with a deep groove 

 along the inner side, and a sliglit one, or none, on the cjuter face. That is to say, there is an 

 anomalous structure of the tarsal envelope ; the tarsus being covered with two series of scu- 

 tella, one lapping around in front, the other around behind, the two meeting along a groove on 

 the inner face of the tarsus, which is consequently blunt behind as well as in front. There is a 

 simple suture of the two series of plates on the outer face of the tarsus ; the individual plates 

 of each series alternate. Other characters (shared by some Motacillidte) are the very long, 

 straight, hind claw, which equals or exceeds its digit in length ; the long, pointed wings, with 

 the 1st primary spurious or apparently wanting, and the inner secondaries (" tertiaries") 

 lengthened and flowing. The nostrils are usually concealed by dense tufts of antrorse feathers. 

 The shape of the bill is not diagnostic, being sometimes short, stout and conic, much as in 

 some FringiUidee, while in other cases it is slenderer, and more like that of insectivorous 

 Passeres. Tlie family is composed, nominally, of a hundred species ; with the exception of one 

 genus and two or three species or varieties, it is confined to the Old World. Its systematic 

 position is open to question ; some place it at the end of the Oscine series, or remove it from 

 Oscines altogether, on account of the peculiarities of the podotheca ; authors generally place it 

 near the Fringillida, from the resemblance of the bill of some species to that of some finches ; 

 but it has many relationships with Motacillidm, and, in the arrangement of this work, I find no 

 better place for it than here, though it has no special alfinity with the preceding families. 

 Moreover, the fact that it appears to have indifferently 9 or 10 primaries may indicate a natural 

 position between the sets of families in which number of primaries is among the diagnostic 

 features. The musical apparatus is certainly well developed, as testified by the eminent vocal 

 powers of the celebrated sky-lark of Europe. The unpractised reader must be careful not to 

 confound the larks proper with certain birds loosely called "larks " ; thus the iiilarks, or pipits, 

 though sharing the lengthened, straightened hind claw and elongated inner wing-quUls of 



