SINGING BIRDS. 



555 



Tig. 480. Warbling Vireo. From 

 Tenney's Zoology. 



South or bobolink, as it is called in the North, wakes up the 



meadows with his lively notes. The finches with their 



conical beaks are succeeded, in the ascending series, by the 



English sparrow, a bird useful in the cities in destroying 

 canker-worms, but a nuisance in 

 the country. Our song-sparrow 

 (Melospiza fasciata) is widely 

 distributed, and everywhere 

 commends itself by its pleasant 

 notes. Quite opposed in its 

 habits is the butcher-bird or 

 shrike (Fig. 479), a quarrelsome, 

 rapacious bird, which feeds on 

 insects or small mammals, often 

 impaling them on thorns or sharp 



twigs, and leaving them there. The group of vireos or 



greenlets (Fig. 480) are peculiar to America ; their bills are 



hooked, with a notch at base ; they are warblers. The wax- 



wing (Ampelis cedrorum, Fig. 481) is the type of an allied 



family. The swallows and 



martins are interesting from 



the change made in the nest- 



ing habits of the more com- 



mon species which rear their 



young in artificial nests or 



in barns, or under the eaves 



of buildings. 



Another group character- 



istic of North America is 



the warblers, Dendrceca (D. 



virens, Fig. 482) being the 



representative genus. On 



the other hand, the larks 



are an Old World assemblage 



of birds, but few species 



occurring in this country, while the wrens (Fig. 483) are 



mostly restricted to America. 



The smallest bird in the United States, except the hum- 



ming-bird, is the gold-crested kinglet (Regulus satrapa 



c , ^-Carolina 



