BIRDS 



393 



especially fitted 

 to live on the 

 multitudes of 

 insects and the 

 seeds and fruits 

 of the higher 

 plants. The 

 name Passeri- 

 formes is from 

 Passer, the Eu- 

 ropean sparrow, 

 but the term 

 "sparrowlike 

 birds" is inade- 

 quate, and con- 

 veys too narrow 

 a meaning. It 

 is better to think 

 of them as perch- 

 ing birds, or song 

 birds, or finches 

 and warblers, 

 but all such ex- 

 pressions cover only a part of the group. One 

 great division is known to naturalists as the 

 oscines, or singing birds, but affinity of struc- 

 ture compels us to include here so unmusical a 

 creature as the crow ! So also the birds of par- 

 adise, which cry wok, wok, wok, in the forests 

 of the Aru Islands. Other oscines are the 

 larks, flycatchers, robins, thrushes, wrens, 

 swallows, waxwings, shrikes, vireos, jays, 

 creepers, finches, warblers, and bluebirds. The 

 so-called robin of America is a thrush, very dif- 



Plwtograph by E. R. Warren 



FIG. 166. Rocky mountain jay (Perisoreus 

 canadensis capitalis). This bird belongs to 

 the family Corvidae, which includes the 

 jays, magpies, crows, etc. It is common 

 in the higher mountains of Colorado, and 

 makes itself very familiar about camps, 

 amusing the campers by its impudent ways. 

 It is often called the Camp Robber. Mr. 

 Warren says: "Like all their family, they 

 are great hands to carry away and hide 

 food, and when fed a bird will usually eat a 

 mouthful or two, take all it can hold in its 

 bill, and fly off with it, presently returning 

 to repeat the performance." It is interest- 

 ing to note that a group of birds is charac- 

 terized by its habits and psychology, as 

 well as by the structural characters used 

 for classification. 



