ICTEBID^: AMEBIC AN STABLINGS; BLACKSIBDS, ETC. 



399 



parts shading from color of the upper through grayish-olive and olive-gray to sordid whitish, 

 purest on the midcUe of the helly. Inner wehs of wing-quills fuscous ; taU the same, hut more 

 glossed with greenish, and sometimes showing traces of crosswise watering with darlcer waves, 

 as often seen in the song span-ow. Whole hend and Unmg of wing hriglit clear yellow. Crown 

 hke hack, with two hroad stripes of dull rufous from nostrils to nape ; a similar rufous stripe 

 hehind eye, sometimes tracoahle past eye to the lore, then defining a superciliary line of liglit 

 olive-gray or whitish. A whitish eye-ring. Upper mandiljlc light hn.wn, h.wer drying 

 yelh)wish ; feet pale. Length 6.25-6.75 (not 5.50, as in BairdJ ; extent 8.50-0.00 ; wing 

 2.40-2.75 ; taU the same; hill 0.50; tarsus 0.90 ; middle toe and chiw 0.75. 9 said to differ 

 immaterially, and young to lacli; the head-stripes. Young, first plumage ; Ahove, mixed hrovm 

 and oUve-tawny ; wings brown, edged with olive, the coverts edged and tii)ped M'ith tawny ; 

 breast like back ; helly tawny. Texas, in Lower Rio Grande Valley. Inhabits shrubbery, 

 cliaparral, and close cover of all kinds, where it is difficult to discover, owing to its quiet ways 

 and greenish tints. Keeps near the ground, but builds a domed nest of twigs and grasses in 

 bushes and low trees ; two broods are reared in May-June, and Aug.-Sept. Eggs 2-4, pure 

 white, unmarked, averaging 0.85 X 0.65, but from 0.75-0.90 by 0.60-0.70. 



17. Family ICTERID-^ : American Starlings: Blackbirds, etc. 



Cultrirostral Oscines with prima- 

 ries. — A family of moderate extent, 

 confined to America, where it repre- 

 sents the SturnidcE, or Starlings of 

 the Old World. It consists of the 

 Blackbirds and Orioles, among the 

 former being included the Bobolinks, 

 Cow-birds, and Meadow " Larks." 

 It is nominally composed of 150 

 species, half of which may prove 

 valid, distributed among 50 genera 

 or subgenera, of which one-fourth 

 may be considered worthy of reten- 

 tion. The relationships are very close 

 with the Eringillidce, on the one 

 hand ; on the other, they grade 

 Fig. 256. — A typical /cfe™s(/.6MHocti). (After Audubon). toward the Crows (Corcid«). They 

 share with Fringilline birds the characters of angulated commissure and 9 developed pri- 

 maries, and this distinguishes them from all the other families whatsoever ; but the distinc- 

 tions from the Fringillidce are not easily expressed. In fact, I know of no character that 

 will relegate the Bobolink and Cowbird to the Icterida rather than to the Fringillidce, 

 in the cuiTent acceptation of these terms. In general, however, the Icterida are cultrirostral 

 rather than strictly eonirostral Oscines, having that cutting rather than crushing style of 

 bill seen in perfection in the crows, toward which some of the Icteridce approach ; being thus 

 distinguished by the length, acnteness, and not strictly conical shape of the unnotched, 

 unbristled hill, which has a peculiar extension of the culmen on the forehead dividing the 

 prominent antia3 of close-set velvety feathers that reach to or on the nasal scale — a character 

 well exhibited in Sturnella, for instance. In length, the hill usually equals if it does not exceed 

 the head ; the tip is unnotched, the rictus unbristled, the commissure obtusely but evidently 

 angulated. The hill is shortest and most fringilline in Dolichonyx and Molothrus ; most acute 

 in the Orioles {Icterus), where it is sometimes actually decurved ; most crow-like in the 



