(MEADOW SEED-FINCH.)
+Orospina pratensis+, _Cab. Journ. f. Orn._ 1883, p. 108, tab. i.
fig. 1.
_Description._--Cap dark greenish yellow; rump yellowish green;
remainder of upper parts dark brown, feathers of interscapulium and
of wings and tail edged with yellowish green; inner webs of the
outer pair of tail-feathers almost wholly white, the next pair with
a large white spot; under surface yellow, lightest on the throat,
middle of belly, and crissum; flanks greenish: total length 4·5
inches, wing 2·5, tail 1·8.
_Hab._ Tucuman.
Herr Schulz discovered this little Finch, which Dr. Cabanis has referred
to a new genus allied to _Sycalis_, upon the high Sierras of Tucuman,
where it was observed sitting on the stones.
Fam. XI. ICTERIDÆ, or TROUPIALS.
The Icteridæ or Troupials constitute a large group of Passerine birds
allied to our Starlings (_Sturnidæ_), of which they take the place in
the New World. They are at once structurally distinguishable from
the Starlings by having only 9 primaries in the wing, just as the
Mniotiltidæ of the New World are in a similar manner distinguishable
from the Sylviidæ.
In America the Icteridæ play an important part, numbering some 130
species, and extending throughout the two continents from north to
south. Of these, 15 species occur in Argentina, and amongst them are
three species of Cow-bird (_Molothrus_), remarkable for their parasitic
habits, of which Hudson's observations have enabled him to give a full
and, for the first time, a tolerably complete account.