2. Psaltria melanotis. (Sanbach.) The black-eared Chickadee. Parus melanotis. Sandb. Proc. Brit. Ass. for Adv. Sci. vi. p. 99. (1837.) “Parus melanotis. Sandb.” Hartlaub, Rev. Zool. 1844, p. 216. Psaltriparus personatus. Bonaparte, Comptes Rendus Acad. Paris, xxxi. p. 478. (Sept. 1850.)
Length (of skin) about 4 inches. Male, broad stripes on each side of the head under the eye, and uniting on the occiput, deep black with a green metallic lustre. Head above pale cinereous, body above cinereous brown, throat and neck white, below ashy white, with a purplish tinge, bill and legs dark. Female, with the ears brown.
Hab. Texas and Mexico. Spec. in Mus. Acad. Philada.
Obs. This pretty little bird has the bill longer and more compressed than either the preceding species, or Psaltria exilis, Temm. It is, however, we think, a true Psaltria, in which respect we coincide with Prof. Westerman, who gives a description and excellent figure of it in Contributions to Zoology, (Bijdragen tot de Dierkunden,) Amsterdam, 1851.
A few other names have been given to American species of the old genus Parus by the earlier authors, all of which are undoubtedly synonymes for those of species previously described, and which we have enumerated. We have in all cases given the authority for the first description and its date.
Chamæa fasciata. (Gambel) a bird of California—though described originally, but as Dr. Gambel expressly states provisionally only, as a Parus, we regard as properly belonging to the family of Wrens (Troglodytidæ.)
Plate 4
The Massena Partridge
Cyrtonyx Massena (Lesson)
CYRTONYX MASSENA.—(Lesson.)
The Massena Partridge.
PLATE IV.—Male and Female.
This singularly, we had almost said, fantastically colored, though very handsome Partridge, is an inhabitant of Texas and Mexico. No other species presents such a remarkable arrangement of colors, and the black lines in the face of the male bird, as the eminent English Ornithologist, Mr. Gould, very appropriately observes, “forcibly remind one of the painted face of the clown in a pantomime.”