Page:Ornithological biography, or an account of the habits of the birds of the United States of America, vol 2.djvu/294

258 with the sides convex, the edges sharp, shghtly notched close upon the tip, which is deflected and acute ; lower mandible convex below, acute, short. Nostrils basal, lateral, elliptical. Head of moderate size, neck short, general form slender. Feet of moderate length, slender ; tarsus com- pressed, covered anteriorly with short scutella, sharp behind ; toes free ; claws compressed, arched, acute.

Plumage soft and tufty ; feathers of the head narrow and erectile. Wings of moderate length, third quiU longest, first and fourth equal. Tail rather long, slightly rounded.

Bill dark brown above, flesh-coloured beneath. Iris hazel. Feet greyish-blue. The general colour of the plumage above is light greenish- olive. Quills and tail wood-brown margined with pale greenish-ohve ; secondary coverts, and first row of small coverts tipped with yellowish- white, forming two bands across the wing, the secondary quills broadly edged and tipped with the same. A very narrow ring of greyish- white round the eye ; throat of the same colour ; sides of the neck and fore part of the breast olivaceous, tinged with grey ; the rest of the under parts yellowish- white.

Length 5| inches, extent of wings 8| ; bill along the ridge j%, along the edge | ; tarsus /g.

Adult Female. Plate CXLIV. Fig. 2.

The female differs from the male only in having the tints somewhat duller, and being rather less.

Laurus sassafras, Willd. Sp. PI. vol. ii. p. 485. Pursh, Fl. Amer. Sept. vol. i. 277. — Enneandria Monogynia, Linn. Lauri, Jms.

The Sassafras grows on almost every kind of soil in the Southern and Western States, where it is of common occurrence. Along the Atlantic States it extends as far as New Hampshire, and still farther north in the western country. The beauty of its fohage and its medicinal properties render it one of our most interesting trees. It attains a height of fifty or sixty feet, with a proportionate diameter. The leaves are alternate, petiolate, oval, and undivided, or three-lobed. The flowers, which appear before the leaves, are of a greenish-yellow colour, and the berries are of an oval form and bluish-black tint, supported on cups of a bright red, having long filiform peduncles.