ICTEBIDM: AMEBIC AN STABLINGS; BLAGKBIBBS, ETC. 



399 



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

 purest on the middle of the belly. Inner webs of wing-quills fuscous ; tail the same, but more 

 glossed with greenish, and sometimes shovring traces of crosswise watering with darker waves, 

 as often seen in the song sparrow. Whole bend and lining of vidng bright clear yeUow. Crown 

 like back, with two broad stripes of duU rufous from nostrils to nape ;. a similar rufous stripe 

 behind eye, sometimes traceable past eye to the lore, then defining a superciUary line of light 

 olive-gray or whitish. A whitish eye-ring. Upper mandible light brown, lower drying 

 yellowish; feet pale. Length 6.23-6.75 (not 5.50, as in Baird) ; extent 8.50-9.00; wing 

 2.40-2.75 ; tail the same; biU 0.50; tarsus 0.90 ; middle toe and claw 0.75. ? said to difi'er 

 immaterially, and young to lack the head-stripes. Young, first plumage : Above, mixed brovni 

 and olive- tawny ; wings brown, edged vsdth olive, the coverts edged and tipped with tawny ; 

 breast like back ; belly tawny. Texas, in Lower Eio Grande Valley. Inhabits shrubbery, 

 chaparral, 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 3-4, 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. 



Cultrwostral Oseines with 9 prima- 

 ries. — A family of moderate extent, 

 confined to America, where it repre- 

 sents the Sturnidcs, 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 

 vahd, distributed among 50 genera 

 or subgenera, of which one-fourth 

 may be considered worthy of reten- 

 tion. The relationships are very close 

 with the Fringillidce, on the one 

 hand ; on the other, they grade 

 Fio. 256. -A typical /(;«e™s(/.6«iiocM). (After Audubon). toward the Crows (Com(^<E). They 



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

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

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

 will relegate the Bobolink and Cowbird to the Icteridce rather than to the FrimgilUdcs, 

 in the current acceptation of these terms. In general, however, the Icteridce are cultrirostral 

 rather than* strictly conirostral Oseines, having that cutting rather than crushing style of 

 bUl seen in perfection in the crows, toward which some of the Icteridm approach ; being thus 

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

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

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

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

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

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

 in the Orioles (Icterus), where it is sometimes actually decurved; most orow-Uke in the 



