The Woodhewer Family. 237 
without the inferior charm of bright colour, offer no 
attraction to the bird-painter, whose share in the 
work of the pictorial monograph is, of course, all- 
important. Yet even the very slight knowledge we 
possess of this family is enough to show that in 
many respects it is one richly endowed, possessing 
characters of greater interest to the student of the 
instincts and mental faculties of birds, than any of 
the gaily-tinted families I have mentioned. 
There is, in the Dendrocolaptidz, a splendid 
harvest for future observers of the habits of South 
American birds: some faint idea of its richness may 
perhaps be gathered from the small collection of the 
most salient facts known to us about them I have 
brought together and put in order in this place. 
And I am here departing a little from the plan 
usually observed in this book, which is chiefly 
occupied with matters of personal knowledge, sea- 
soned with a little speculation; but in this case | 
have thought it best to supplement my own observa- 
tions with those of others who have collected and 
observed birds in South America,* so as to give as 
comprehensive a survey of the family as I could. 
It is strange to find a Passerine family, numerous 
as the Tree-creepers, uniformly of one colour, or 
nearly so; for, with few exceptions, these birds have 
a brown plumage, without a particle of bright 
colour. But although they possess no brillant or 
metallic tints, in some species, as we shall see, there 
are tints approaching to brightness. Notwithstand- 
* Azara; D’Orbigny; Darwin; Bridges; Frazer; Leotaud ; 
Gaumer; Wallace ; Bates; Cunningham ; Stolzmann ; Jelski; 
Durnford; Gibson; Burrows; Doring ; White, &c. 
