File: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 (14563060808).jpg

Identifier: keytonorthameric02coue (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: 1890 (1890s)
Authors: Coues, Elliott, 1842-1899
Subjects: Birds -- North America Birds -- Collection and preservation
Publisher: Boston, D. Estes and Company
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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s. Eggs few or single, plain or varieiiated. Thenumerous species confined to the Northern Hemisphere. Birds of this fLimily will be immediately recognized by the foregoing, in connection withgeneral pygopodous characters. Agreeing clo.seIy in essential respects, they differ amonir them-selves to a remarkable degree in the form of the bill, with every genus and almost every species ;this organ frequently assuming an odd shape, developing horny processes, showing variousridi,es and furrows, or being brilliantly colored. It is the rule that any soft part that may l)eobserved on the bill will finally become liard, or form an outgrowth, or both ; and such pro-cesses, in some cases at least, are temnf)rary, appearing only during the breedinj; season. The last sentence, reprinted as it stands in the original edition of tiio Key (1872). Iiintsat the extraordinary clianges undergone by the bill in .several genera of AIcid>f, so ablv elnci- 1060 SYSTEMATIC SYNOPSIS. — PYGOPODES — ALC.E.
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dated in 1877 and 1879 by - L. Bureau, who showedthat in certain species parts of the hornycovering are regukirly shed or moulted, ina manner anahtgous to the casting of deers ant-lers, and quite as in the case of our White Peli-can, which drops the centre-board of thel)iil. In the Common Puffin, for example, nofewer than nine horny pieces fall off separately,after the breeding season, to be renewed againfrom the soft basement membrane. The ab-sence, in winter, of the horny plate at the angleof the mouth of Simorliynchus cristatellus, hadbeen noted (Key, 1872), as well as the presenceor absence of the horn of Ceratorhina ; but wehad no knowledge of the process by which thechange is effected, prior to Bureaus studies.Since then Simorhynchus pusillus has provedto shed the knob. In Fratercula there is alsoa moult of the excrescences upon the eyelids,and a shrivelling of the colored rosette at thecorner of the mouth. Auks are confined to the Northern Hemi-sphere. Some representatives

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