108 TROPICAL NATURE, AND OTHER ESSAYS. 



huge bills, as well as their habits of perching on the top 

 of bare or isolated trees, render them very conspicuous 

 objects. 



The Picarise comprise many other interesting families ; 

 as, for example, the puff-birds, the todies, and the hum- 

 ming-birds ; but as these are all confined to America we 

 can hardly claim them as characteristic of the tropics 

 generally. Others, though very abundant in the tropics, 

 like the kingfishers and the goatsuckers, are too well 

 known in temperate lands to allow of their being con- 

 sidered as specially characteristic of the equatorial zone. 

 We will therefore pass on to consider what are the more 

 general characteristics of the tropical as compared with 

 the temperate bird-fauna, especially as exemplified 

 among the true perchers or Passeres, which constitute 

 about three-fourths of all terrestrial birds. 



Passeres. This great order comprises all our most 

 familiar birds, such as the thrushes, warblers, tits, shrikes, 

 flycatchers, starlings, crows, wagtails, larks, and finches. 

 These families are all more or less abundant in the 

 tropics ; but there are a number of other families which 

 are almost or quite peculiar to tropical lands and give 

 a special character to their bird-life. All the peculiarly 

 tropical families are, however, confined to some definite 

 portion of the tropics, a number of them being American 

 only, others Australian, while others again are common 

 to all the warm countries of the Old World ; and it is a 

 curious fact that there is no single family of this great 

 order of birds that is confined to the entire tropics, or 

 that is even especially characteristic of the tropical zone, 

 like the cuckoos among the Picariae. The tropical 

 families of passerine birds being very numerous, and 



