5 22 PASSERIFORMES : CHAMAEIDAE CHAr. 



Organ-bird of the Amazons, Troglodytes domesticus (aedon), Miero- 

 cerculus, and other American forms utter melodious iiute-lilie strains. 

 The nest is usually a domed structure of ferns, grass, moss, leaves, 

 or even twigs, often lined with hair or feathers, which is placed in 

 bushes, hedges, cacti, reeds, and cavities of masonry, or on trees, 

 rocks, banks, and the like; Salpinctes/Jatlierpes, VrocicJila and some- 

 times Pnoej>yga make no covering; Gumpylorhynchus fashions a large 

 purse-like structure, with a long passage for entrance. The eggs 

 vary in number from three to nine, and are white, with or with- 

 out spots or freckles of red, purplish, or brownish ; in Thryophilus 

 Ijleurostictus they are said to be blue. 



Fam. X. Chamaeidae. — This contains only Chamaea fasciata 

 and C. henshawi of California, which by various American 

 authorities have been referred to the Wrens or the Tits, though 

 not agreeing closely with either. This is the only Family of land 

 birds peculiar to the ISTearctic Eegion. In both sexes the lax 

 plumage is brown above and huffish below, with faint tail-bars and 

 pectoral streaks ; the bill is short, straight, and compressed, and 

 is furnished with rictal bristles ; the metatarsi are stout and nearly 

 smooth ; the wings are rounded and concave ; the tail is graduated. 

 Ohamaea inhabits dry plains and bushy hill-sides, flits about or 

 searches for insects with elevated tail, utters a Wren -like trill, 

 and builds a nest of twigs and grass in low bushes, adding 

 hair or feathers to the lining, and laying three or four pale 

 greenish-blue eggs. 



Fam. XI. Hirundinidae. — The Swallows and Martins compose 

 a well-defined cosmopolitan Family, certainly far removed from 

 the Swifts (p. 420), with which they used to be joined. The latter 

 have ten tail-feathers, and hardly any scutellation on the legs, the 

 former twelve rectrices, and an anteriorly scutellated metatarsus. 

 The bill is short, broad, and usually much depressed, being notched 

 at the tip and split nearly to the eyes. The feet are very small 

 and weak, with the middle digit more or less adherent to 

 its neighbours ; Tachycineta has a stoutish hallux, Chelidon 

 feathered toes, and Cotile riparia a tuft at the back of the 

 metatarsus. The wings are extremely long and pointed, while 

 the exterior margin of the outer primary has hooked barbs in the 

 males of Psalidoprocne and Stelgidopteryx. The tail varies in 

 length, and is often very deeply forked, Petrochelidon, Stelgido- 

 pteryx, Chelidon dasypus and Psalidoprocne nitens having it excep- 



