208 APPENDIX. 
GENERAL FAMILY CHARACTERISTICS OF BIRDS 
TREATED. 
CUCKOOS. 
Long slender birds whose breasts are whitish and backs 
brown, with a faint bronze lustre. Bill, long and curved. 
Call, loud and prolonged. Song, wanting. Habits, eccen- 
tric —strange silent birds, living in undergrowth or low 
trees. 
KINGFISHERS. 
Large top-heavy birds with long crests, slate-blue backs, 
and white breasts. Bill, very large and strong for holding 
fish, Flight, rapid and prolonged. Song, a loud hurried 
trill. Fishermen by occupation, they live about rivers and 
lakes, excavating nests in the banks. 
WOODPECKERS. 
Plumage, largely black and white. Bill, strong and long 
for drilling through bark and wood. Flight, noisy, flicker- 
ing. Call, loud and shrill. Song, wanting, except as they 
drum on trees, ete. Habits, phlegmatic, most of time spent 
clinging, erect, to sides of tree trunks. (Exception, yellow 
hammer : plumage, brownish, instead of black and white ; 
song, a loud full trill ; habits, more like ground woodpeck- 
ers ; haunts ant-hills, fields, and fence-posts, etc.) 
GOATSUCKERS. 
Mottled brownish and grayish birds, with tiny bills and 
enormous mouths for catching insects on the wing. Nest, 
wanting — eggs laid on bare ground or leaves. 
SWIFTS. 
Sooty or blackish birds that live on the wing, never 
lighting except in chimneys, towers, or hollow trees where 
