280 
SYSTEMATIC SYNOPSIS. —PASSEBES — OSCINES. 
26. CISTOTHO'RUS. (Gr. KiVroy, kistos, a shrub; 6ovpos, thoiiros, leaping.) Marsh Wrens. 
Like Telmatochjtes ; whole hack and crown streaked with M'hite. Bill scarcely or not one-half 
as long as head. Eggs white. 
81* C. stella'ris. (Lat. stellaris, starry; i. e., speckled. Fig. 152.) Short-billed Marsh Wren. 
Upper parts brown, the crown and most of the back blackish, streaked with white. Below, 
whitish, 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. 
Bill blackish 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; bUl 0.35-0.40; 
tarsus, middle toe, and claw together, about 1.12. The streak- 
ing 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 imder 
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. 
Fig. 152. — Short-billed Marsh 
Wren, nat. size. (Ad nat. del. E. C.) 
7. Family ALAUDID^ : Larks. 
A rather small group, well defined by the character of the feet, in adaptation to terrestrial 
life. The subcylindrical 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 Motacillidce) 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 C tertiaries ") 
lengthened and flowing. The nostrils are usually concealed by dense tufts of antrorse feathers. 
The shape of the bill is not diagnostic, being sometimes short, stout and conic, much as in 
some Fringillidce, while 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 
Oscines altogether, on account of the peculiarities of the podotheca ; authors generally place it 
near the FringiTlidce, from the resemblance of the bill of some species to that of some finches ; 
but it has many relationships with MotacillidcB, 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 well 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 wing-quills of 
