TROPICAL NATUEE 



thologists, it will be better to consider the series of fifty 

 families of Passeres as one compact group, and endeavour to 

 point out what external peculiarities are most distinctive of 

 those which inhabit tropical countries. 



Owing to the prevalence of forests and the abundance of 

 flowers, fruits, and insects, tropical and especially equatorial 

 birds have become largely adapted to these kinds of food ; 

 while the seed-eaters, which abound in temperate lands where 

 grasses cover much of the surface, are proportionately scarce. 

 Many of the peculiarly tropical families are therefore either 

 true insect-eaters or true fruit-eaters, whereas in the tem- 

 perate zones a mixed diet is more general. 



One of the features of tropical birds that will first strike 

 the observer is the prevalence of crests and of ornamental 

 plumage in various parts of the body, and especially of ex- 

 tremely long or curiously shaped feathers in the tails, tail- 

 coverts, or wings of a variety of species. As examples we 

 may refer to the red paradise-bird, whose middle tail-feathers 

 are like long ribands of whalebone ; to the wire-like tail 

 feathers of the king bird-of-paradise of New Guinea, and of 

 the wire-tailed manakin of the Amazons ; and to the long 

 waving tail plumes of the whydah finch of West Africa and 

 paradise flycatcher of India ; to the varied and elegant crests 

 of the cock-of-the-rock, the king-tyrant, the umbrella-bird, 

 and the six-plumed bird-of-paradise ; and to the wonderful 

 side plumes of most of the true paradise-birds. In other 

 orders of birds we have such remarkable examples as the 

 racquet-tailed kingfishers of the Moluccas, and the racquet- 

 tailed parrots of Celebes ; the enormously developed tail- 

 coverts of the peacock and the Mexican trogon; and the 

 excessive wing-plumes, of the argus-pheasant of Malacca and 

 the long-shafted goatsucker of West Africa. 



Still more remarkable are the varied styles of coloration 

 in the birds of tropical forests, which rarely or never appear 

 in those of temperate lands. We have intensely lustrous 

 metallic plumage in the jacamars, trogons, humming-birds, 

 sun-birds, and paradise-birds ; as well as in some starlings, 

 pittas or ground thrushes, and drongo-shrikes. Pure green 

 tints occur in parrots, pigeons, green bulbuls, greenlets, and 

 in some tanagers, finches, chatterers, and pittas. These 



