Identifier: keytonorthameric00coues (find matches)
Title: 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
Year: 1896 (1890s)
Authors: Coues, Elliott, 1842-1899
Subjects: Birds Birds
Publisher: Boston, Estes and Lauriat
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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etreating aroundback of the eye, which is wholly in bare skin, then running forward to a point on the side ofthe lower mandible; retreating again, then running forward in a point on the middle line ofthe chin, further than on jaw or forehead ; there being thus enclosed, on each side of thehead, a broad naked space, widest forward, narrowing behind to embrace the eye : and betweenthe rami of the jaw another bare space, forked behind to receive the projecting feathers of the 650 SYSTEM A TIC SYNOPSIS. — HEBODIONES — IBIDES. chin, and not quite separated from the bare •Kl space, because the feathers on the side of thejaw stojj a httle short of the hard base of the mandible. Young, first plumage (with traces ofdown still) : Remarkably lustrous. Plumage entirely green; legs black ; biU blackish, irreg-ularly blotched or regularly banded with pinkish-white. This green unicolor plumage, consti-tuting Ibis thalassinus of some, is retained till full growth, gradually giving way through a
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^m^^ Fig. 454. —European Spoonbill, Platalea leucorodia, \ nat. size. (From Brelim.)brownish or grayish to the purple-chestnut and iridescent plumage. Chicks hatch clothed inblackish down, with whitish bill. Southwestern U. S., especially Texas; N. to Kansas; W.through New Mexico and Arizona to California (to Oregon?), and far S. in tropical America.Swarming by thousands at some points along the Rio Grande. Nest in vast heronries withvarious herons, in the beds of reeds and rushes, rising in air by hundreds of acres when a gunis fired. Nest strongly and compactly woven of dead reeds, affixed by twining to broken down PLATALEID^: SPOONBILLS. 651 or upright living ones, about a foot iu diameter and nearly as deep, well cupped,, thus unlikethe frail platforms herons build. Eggs 3-4, rarely 5, deep bluish-green, not elliptical, from1.72 X 1.30 to 2.20 X 1.50, averaging 1.99 X 1.42. EUDOCIMUS. (Gr. evdoKifios, well-tried, apj^roved, famous.) White Ibis. ScarletIbis. General character of

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