39 



V. CANTATORES. SONGSTERS. 



The birds to wliich, considered collectively, I have given 

 the name of Songsters are obviously more deserving of that 

 title than any others, their vocal powers being of the highest 

 order, for although some species of Pegluhitores and Tkrem- 

 maphilince may in this respect rival many of the Cantatores^ 

 yet not only do the latter in general possess more musical 

 talent than all the other groups together, but several species 

 among them, for example, the Sky Lark, the Wood Lark, the 

 Mocking-bird, the Wood Thrush, the Common Thrush, the 

 Blackbird, the Nightingale, the Blackcap, and the Garden 

 Warbler, excel all competitors in the variety, melody, and 

 compass of their song. It may not therefore be said that they 

 are inaptly named. But a more serious task, that of charac- 

 terizing them, has to be performed, before the propriety of the 

 proposed arrangement can be made manifest. 



To begin with their most obvious characters, it may, in the 

 first place, be stated that they are all of small size, some of 

 them being extremely diminutive, while the largest does not 

 exceed a Merlin or a Turtle Dove. They form part of the 

 so-called order Insessores of some ornithologists, from which 

 I have already separated the Deglubitores or Huskers, having 

 thick conical bills, fitted for shelling seeds or kernels, a small 

 dimidiate crop or oesophageal dilatation, and a highly muscular 

 gizzard, and the Vagatores or Wanderers, which have the bill 

 more elongated and compressed, the oesophagus without dila- 



