55. 
165. 
56. 
AMPELIDA — AMPELINAE: WAXWINGS. 325 
PROGNE. (Gr. Upon, Procne, a nythological character.) Of large size and robust form 
for this family. Bill long and stout, with much-curved commissure and deflected tip; culmen 
convex, its tomial edge concavo-convex like +,. Nostrils circular, opening upward, without 
nasal scale. Fect large, with strong, much-curved claws; tarsus shorter than middle toe and 
claw ; lateral toes about equalling each other in length ; basal joint of middle toe freer from 
lateral toes than usual. Tail forked. Sexes dissimilar. Eggs colorless. 
P. su’/bis. (Lat. subis, name of an unknown bird.) PurpLe Martin. 4, adult: Intense 
lustrous steel-blue. Wings and tail blackish, with bluish lustre. Bill black; feet blackish. 
Length 7.50 inches; extent 15.50; wing 5.50-6.00; tail 3.00-3.50, forked; bill 0.50, very 
stout, broad at the base, somewhat decurved at the end; nostrils circular, exposed, opening 
upward. 9: Dark grayish-brown, glossed on the back and head with steel-blue. Wings 
and tail fuscous, paler on the inner webs, with narrow gray edgings. Beneath, whitish, shaded 
with dark gray in most parts, the feathers very generally with dusky shaft-line. Young birds 
of both sexes resemble the adult female, though the young males are rather darker. The steel- 
blue appears at first in patches. U.S. and adjoining British Provinces, abundant and gener- 
ally distributed; breeds throughout its range, usually in the East in boxes provided for its 
accommodation, in the West in holes in trees. 
18. Family AMPELIDA: Chatterers. 
This appears to be an arbitrary and unnatural association of a few genera that agree in 
some particulars, but are widely different in others. The composition and position of the group 
differ with almost every writer; some place it in Clamatores, next to the Tyrannide. I think 
that the family should be dismembered ; the Mytadestine are near the true Thrushes, and 
doubtless the other two subfamilies here presented may be properly dissociated. 
Birds of the three following genera agree in this character: Bill short, broad, flattened, 
plainly notched at tip, with wide rictus, and culmen or gonys hardly or not exceeding half the 
length of the commissure; basal phalanx of middle toe joined with outer toe for about two- 
thirds its length, and to inner toe for about half its length. The three, considered separately, 
may be readily and precisely defined. 
18. Subfamily AMPELINA:: Waxwings. 
Of this subfamily, as here restricted, there is only one genus with three species — one of 
Europe, Asia, and America, one of Asia and Japan, one peculiar to America. 
AM'PELIS. (Gr. dyedis, Lat. ampelis, name of a bird.) Waxwines. Bill short, broad, 
flat, rather obtuse, plainly notched near tip of each mandible, with wide and deeply-cleft gape, 
the convex culmen and gonys less than half as long as the nearly straight commissure, the 
width of rictus more than two-thirds the length of the gape. Nasal fosse broad, but filled 
with short, erect or antrorse, and close-set velvety feathers; nostrils narrowly elliptical, over- 
arched by a (feathered) scale. ictal vibrissee few and short. Wings long and pointed, much 
longer than the tail, their point formed by the 3d primary, closely supported by the 2d and 4th, 
the 5th abruptly shorter and the rest rapidly graduated. Primaries 10, but the 1st spurious, so 
very short as readily to escape observation, and sometimes displaced to the outer side of the 2d 
primary, —a, condition like that seen among the Vireos. Inner quills, as a rule, and sometimes 
the tail-feathers, tipped with curious red horny appendages, like sealing-wax. Tail short, 
narrow, even, two-thirds or less of the length of the wing. Feet rather weak ; tarsus shorter 
than the middle toe and claw, distinctly scutellate with five or six divisions anteriorly and some- 
what receding from strict Oscine character by subdivision of the lateral plates. Lateral toes of 
nearly equal lengths, the ends of their claws scarcely reaching the base of the middle claw ; 
hallux about as long as the inner lateral toe. Basal phalanx of middle toe coherent with outer 
