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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ray downy bases, as elsew^here on the body. Color entirely lus-trous black, with chietly purplish and violet burnishing. Length about 2 feet — at least over20 inches; expanse of wings 4 or 4i feet — much over a yard. Wing about li feet— at leastover 15 inches. Tail about 10 inches ; its feathers graduated 1.50-2.50 inches. Bill along chordof culmen, and tarsus, about 2.50. Varies much in size. Greenland and Labrador specimensare of great size, with immense bill toueliing 3.00. The bill is usually longer and relatively lessdeep in the American than in the Eurijpean raven ; whole bird more sturdy and robust. Theusual wing-formula, is: primary 4>-3 = 5>2>6>l = 8; but these quills grow and moultso gradually the proportionate lengths differ much in specimens examined. The 9 is undistin-guishable from the ^, though averaging smaller. N. Amer. ; but now rare in the U. S. eastof the Mississippi, and altogether wanting in most of the States ; Labrador, ranging southward, 339.
Text Appearing After Image:
Pig. 268. —Head of a very large American Kaven, nat. size. (Ad nat. del. E.G.) rarely, along the coast to the Middle districts; very abundant in the West, where the sableplume and the bleaching skeleton, the ominous croak and the Indian war-whoop, are not yetthings of the past. Wherever in the West the raven abounds, the crow seems to be sup-planted. Nests higli in trees and on cliffs, selecting the most inaccessible places. Eggs 4-8,oftener 4-5, about 2.00 X 1-30, greenish, dotted, blotched and clouded with neutral tints, pur-plish- and blackish-browns. C. cryptoleucus. (Gr. Kpvnros, kruptos, crypted or hidden; XevKos, leukos, white.) White-necked Raven. Throat-feathers as in C. corax; but bases of the feathers of neck snowy-white. Smaller than the raven; about as large as a good-sized crow, and generally taken forone in those regions where it occurs with the raven, the difference between them being obviousin life ; the accounts of crows in some regions where C. americanus does not

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