. Birds of the Colorado valley ... scientific and popular information concerning North American ornithology;. Birds. 1 92 MOTACILLID^ ANTHIN^ AN'jfHUS are. two groups in the family, couimouly admitted as sub- families. In one of these, the Motacillince, or typical Wagtails, the tail is lengthened to equal or exceed the wing, and formed of narrow feathers gradually tapering to their rounded ends; only three primaries usually enter into the point of the wing; the tarsi are longer and slenderer; the lateral toes are shorter; and the sj'Stem of coloration for the most part has what a painter would
. Birds of the Colorado valley ... scientific and popular information concerning North American ornithology;. Birds. 1 92 MOTACILLID^ ANTHIN^ AN'jfHUS are. two groups in the family, couimouly admitted as sub- families. In one of these, the Motacillince, or typical Wagtails, the tail is lengthened to equal or exceed the wing, and formed of narrow feathers gradually tapering to their rounded ends; only three primaries usually enter into the point of the wing; the tarsi are longer and slenderer; the lateral toes are shorter; and the sj'Stem of coloration for the most part has what a painter would call "breadth'', the colors being massed in large areas. The hind claw in „^ „ , , , , ,. „ Motacilla is of ordinary characters ; Fig. 26.—Head and foot of Yellow •' ' Wagtail. but in Budytes, the next most prom- inent genus, it is lengthened and straightened. The Mota- cillincc are only represented in the western hemisphere by the Motacilla alba, or common White Wagtail of Europe, which has occasionally been fouEd in Greenland, and by the Yellow Wagtail, Budytes flava, an ubiquitous species of the Old World lately ascertained to occur abundantly in Alaska. The cut of this sptcies (fig. 26) will illustrate some motacilline features. The other grou[) is the Subfamily AN THIN Jj]: Pipits, oe Titlarks In these, the tail is shorter than the wings, and composed of broader feathers retaining their width to near the end; four or five primaries usually form the point of the wing ; the tarsi are relatively shorter, usually about equal to the middle toe; the lateral toes are longer, the points of their claws reaching beyond the base of the middle claw; the hind claw is always lengthened and straightened (as in the iigure beyond given under head of Anihus ludovioianus); and the coloration is " nig- gled", that is to say, broken up in streaks and spots. The species of Anthince make up nearly or about half the family; they are chiefly referable to the Genus ANTHUS
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