280 SYSTEMATIC SYNOPSIS.— PASSEMES—OSCINES. 



2r6. CISTOTHO'RTJS. (Gr. daroi, Jcistos, a shrub ; 6ovpos, thouros, leaping.) Marsh Weens. 



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



as long as head. Eggs white. 



81. C. stella'ris. (Lat. «feBans, starry ; i. e., speckled. Fig. 152.) Shoet-billed Marsh Ween. 



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



M'hitish, shaded with clear brown across the breast and along 

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

 more or less indistinctly barred with dusky (often inappreci- 

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

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

 BUI blacldsh 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. 152. — Short-billed Marsli tarsus, middle toe, and claw together, about 1.12. The streak- 

 Wren, nat. Bize. (Ad nat. del. E. c.) i^g of the 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 whitish 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 like 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 tewestrial 

 life. The subcylindrioal tarsi are scutellate and blunt behind as in front, with, a deep groove 

 along the inner side, and a slight one, or none, on the outer 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 MotadlUdcB) 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 antroi-se feathers. 

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

 some Frmgillidce, whUe in other cases it is slenderer, and more like that of insectivorous 

 Passeres. The 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 

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

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

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

 better place for it than here, though it has no special affinity 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 weU 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 titlarks, or pipits, 

 though sharing the lengthened, straightened hind claw and elongated inner vring-quills of 



