brownish-grey, streaked and minutely sprinkled with brownish-black. Cheeks brownish-red. The quills and coverts are dark brown, spotted in bars with light brown, the tips of the former mottled with light and dark brown. Four middle tail-feathers like those of the back, the three lateral white in their terminal half, deep brown, spotted with light brown towards the base, the latter colours running along the outer web of the outermost to near the tip. Throat and breast similar to the back, with a transverse band of yellowish-white across the fore-neck; the rest of the under parts paler and mottled.
Length 9 inches, extent of wings 19; bill along the ridge 5⁄12, along the gap 17⁄12.
Adult Female. Plate LXXXII. Fig. 2, 3.
The female resembles the male in colouring, but the lateral tail-feathers are reddish-white towards the tip only, and the band across the fore-neck is pale yellowish-brown.
Black Oak or Quercitron.
- Quercus tinctoria, Willd. Sp. Pl. vol. iv. p. 414. Pursh, Flor. Amer. vol. ii. p. 629. Mich. Abr. Forest. de l'Amer. Sept. vol. ii. p. 110. Pl. 2—Monœcia Polyandria, Linn. Amentaceæ, Juss.
Leaves obovato-oblong, sinuate, pubescent beneath, their lobes acuminate, obsoletely denticulate; the cup scutellato-turbinate; the acorn globular depressed. This is one of the largest trees of the United States, and attains a height from eighty to ninety feet, with a diameter of from four to five. The bark is deeply cracked, and of a black colour. The wood is reddish, coarse-grained, and not so much esteemed as that of the White Oak, and some other species. The bark is used for tanning, as well as for dyeing wool of a yellow colour. It is generally distributed, especially in the mountainous parts.
