(2)—INSESSORES (Perching Birds). 
This order lays claim to far the biggest number of birds found 
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anywhere, at least 3 or more, of our feathered community. 
“ They comprise ” says the late Dr. Alf. Russel Wallace, the famous 
vaturalist, “at once the most beautiful, and the most familiar of birds. 
The feathered inhabitants of our fields, gardens, hedgerows, and 
houses belong to it. They cheer us with their song, and delight us 
with their varied colours. Their activity and elegant motions are 
constant source of pleasure to every lover of nature. They are the 
birds with which, from our infancy and boyhood, we are most 
familiar ; and we therefore involuntarily derive frora them that 
ideal, or typical form of animal life, with which we comnect the 
general term bird. Here too, the greatest variety of forms and 
habits is found, which are all connected together by such insensible 
gradations that to discover in every case their true affinities has ever 
been, and still remains, one of the most difficult, and at the same 
time most interesting problems the naturalist has to solve.” 
The Jnsessores, we might say, comprise all the birds not included 
in Raptores, Gemitores, Rasores, Grallitores and Natatores i.e. Birds 
of Prey, Pigeons, Game-Birds, Wading and Swimming Birds. They 
have their feet on the same plane: bills, varied in form and shape ; 
wipgs usually with ten primaries, and tail of 10 feathers in most 
of the sub-families ; feet and legs suitable for perching, and some 
groups of birds equally well adapted for walking on the land and 
hopping about. Young of Jnsessores are born callow, and require to 
be fed, nourished and educated by their parents, I might add, for 
some time, before dispensing with the maternal care. This order 
possesses other important qualifications in habits and _ structure, 
which we need not dwell, at length on, at the present stage of our 
enquiry. This vast Order has given much trouble to Ornithologists 
adducing various systems. The following, grouping together into tribes 
of the Jnsessores, will considerably facilitate the study of the natural 
system, also lessen your labours not a little. 
(1). Fissirostres—Bill having a large wide gape; feed on insects 
chiefly, on the wing—The swallows ete. 
(2) Scansores—Bill varied. These birds have their toes in pairs 
two in front and two behind ; suitable for climb- 
ing—woodpeckers, Barbets ete. 
(3) Tenuirostres—Bill slender, tip pointed, often curved. Feed on juices 
of flowers, buds, pollen, soft fruit and insects. 
