. Key to North American birds. Containing a concise account of every species of living and fossil bird at present known from the continent north of the Mexican and United States boundary, inclusive of Greenland and lower California, with which are incorporated General ornithology, an outline of the structure and classification of birds, and Field ornithology, a manual of collecting, preparing, and preserving birds . x, much as in the Owls; the birds have the sameuijiseless flight, as well as, in most cases, nocturnal or crepus-cular habits ; and some of them bear an odd resemblance toOwls. Bes
. Key to North American birds. Containing a concise account of every species of living and fossil bird at present known from the continent north of the Mexican and United States boundary, inclusive of Greenland and lower California, with which are incorporated General ornithology, an outline of the structure and classification of birds, and Field ornithology, a manual of collecting, preparing, and preserving birds . x, much as in the Owls; the birds have the sameuijiseless flight, as well as, in most cases, nocturnal or crepus-cular habits ; and some of them bear an odd resemblance toOwls. Besides this fluffiness and laxity of the plumage, theskin is very thin and tender; it is diflScult to make good speci-mens of the Whippoorwills, and the curiously variegated blendedshades, of exquisite beauty, like the powdery coloration of amoths wings, are at best not easy to describe. An evidentdesign of the capacious mouth is the capture of insects; theactive birds quarter the air with wide-open mouth, and theirminute prey is readily taken in. But they also secure largerinsects in other ways; and to this end the rictus is frequentlystrongly bristled, as in the Tyrannidce and Capitonidce. The most usual quarry consists ofnocturnal or crepuscular moths and beetles. In all our genera except Chordeiles, the rictalbristles are or more in length, in a firm regular series along gape — relatively longer and. Fig. 379. — Night-hawk, a gla-brirostral Caprimulgine. (From Ten-ney, after Wilson.) caprimulgidjE — caprlml^: true goatsuckers. 563 stiffer than whiskers of a cat. Our several genera are readily discriminated by good charac-ters of nostrils, enormous rictal bristles, and comparatively short wings of Night-iars jjroper,in comparison with slight bristles, forked tail, and long pointed wings of Chonleiles ; theyrespectively represent two sections of the subfamily — Setirostres, bristled-billed (fig. 378),and Glabrirostres, smooth-billed (fig. 379). Most genera of
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectbirdsnorthamerica
