DESCRIPTION AND TECHNICAL OBSERVATIONS.

Genus Vireo. Vieillot, Ois d’Am., Sept. I, p. 83. (1807.)

Size small; bill rather short, strong, wide at base, compressed towards the point, which is curved downwards, and sharp; upper mandible with distinct notches near the point; nostrils basal, large; wing moderate or rather short, with the third and fourth quills usually longest; tail rather short; legs long, rather slender. An American genus, containing six species. The Red-eyed Flycatcher (V. olivaceus), and others of the long-billed species, are not included, but have properly been embraced in a new group, Vireosylvia, Bonaparte.

Vireo atricapillus. Woodhouse, Proc. Acad., Philada., VI. p. 60. (April, 1852.)

Form. Small, but compact, and rather broad; bill rather short, acute; wing with the third and fourth quills equal; tail rather short, even at the end, or slightly emarginate.

Dimensions. Male.—Total length, 7½ inches; Wing, 2¼; tail, 1¾; expanse of Wings, 7¼.

Color. Male.—Head above and cheeks black; stripe before the eye, and entire under parts, white, tinged with greenish-yellow on the sides and flanks; back, rump, and upper tail-coverts, dark olive-green; quills brownish-black, with a greenish tinge, and edged externally with greenish-yellow; wing-coverts tipped with greenish-white; tail feathers brownish-black, edged externally with greenish-yellow; bill and feet dark; iris light red.

Hab. Texas. Spec. in Mus. Acad., Philada., and Nat. Mus., Washington city.

Obs. This is a very distinct and peculiar species of this genus, not at all resembling any other, and readily distinguished by its black head. It belongs, however, strictly to the same group as V. flavifrons, V. solitarius, V. noveboracencis, and others, and is one of the most interesting of the more recent additions to the ornithology of the United States.

PICOLAPTES BRUNNEICAPILLUS.—La Fresnaye.
The Brown-headed Creeper.
PLATE XXV.—Adult Male.

This is a species belonging to a large family of birds, very numerous in the tropical and southern regions of the American continent, though of which not more than two species are known to venture so far north as to come within the limits of the United States. They subsist on insects, which they capture on the trunks and branches of trees, or, in the countries where such plants abound, on the large species of Cactus, and others of a similar character.

Some of the larger birds of this group have very long and singularly curved bills, which it is supposed are peculiarly adapted to searching for insects in the deep furrows or interstices of the rough barks of trees. All have more or less strong feet and claws, designed for their manner of creeping on trees, somewhat similar to that of the Woodpeckers, but more like the Nuthatches, or little Sapsuckers, as they are commonly designated in the United States, and the Brown Creeper of our woods (Certhia americana). The latter is in fact the only northern representative of the family to which our present species belongs, but so small, that it conveys but a faint idea of the form and colors of these birds generally. They are, however, for the greater part, birds of plain colors, frequently brown of various shades, or snuff-colored.

The bird figured in the present plate was first noticed in Texas, by Capt. J. P. McCown, of the United States Army, and is given by Mr. Lawrence as an addition to the ornithology of the North in the Annals of the New York Lyceum of Natural History, V. p. 114 (1851), but with no account of its habits. Since that time, it has been again observed by Mr. Clark at several localities in Texas, and is known to be of frequent occurrence in the States of Mexico immediately south of the Rio Grande, and in other parts of the same country.

The Brown-headed Creeper was seen by Dr. Heermann in Mexico, and in his paper in the Journal of the Philadelphia Academy, II. p. 263, he thus mentions it:—

Plate 25
The Brown-headed Creeper
Picolaptes brunneicapillus (La Fresnaye)

“I found this bird in the arid country back of Guaymas, on the Gulf of California. The country itself is the picture of desolation, presenting a broken surface, and a confused mass of volcanic rocks, covered by a scanty vegetation of thorny bushes and cacti. In this desert I found several interesting species, which enter into our fauna as birds of Texas, and this species was one of the number. It appeared to be a lively, sprightly bird, uttering at intervals a clear, loud, ringing note. The nest, composed of grasses, and lined with feathers, was in the shape of a long purse, laid flat between the forks or on the branches of a Cactus. The entrance was a covered passage, varying from six to ten inches in length. The eggs, six in number, are of a delicate salmon color, very pale, and often so thickly speckled with ash and darker salmon-colored spots, as to give a rich cast to the whole surface of the egg.”

In the original description of this bird by the Baron La Fresnaye, an eminent French ornithologist, in Guerin’s Magazine of Zoology, 1835, p. 61 (Paris), his specimen is represented as being probably from California. It has not been noticed in that country by either of our American naturalists, though found by Dr. Heermann, as above stated, near Guaymas, in Northern Mexico.

Our figure is rather less than two-thirds of the size of life.