120 TENUIROSTRES. 



describe all its appearances and habits, so far as they 

 are known to us, in a manner perfectly satisfactory. 

 We can thus study birds, and know them, and learn 

 from them, with perfect ease and certainty ; but we 

 cannot classify them. 



The great locomotive powers of birds are among 

 the chief causes of this. What with their ordinary 

 journeys, and what with their seasonal migratory ones, 

 they are here, there, and everywhere. Sea or land, 

 mountain or plain, waste or cultivated field, we find 

 them there, as inhabitants or as passengers ; and there 

 is not a spot of land or spot of water but may become 

 the inn of a wayfaring bird. Their clothing adapts 

 them well to the weather ; and it is necessary that 

 they should not be very particular in their food, for 

 they are exposed to many changes of it, and must 

 frequently take what they can find without any choice. 

 It is for this reason that classifications founded on 

 the shape of the bill fail so much in other respects ; 

 and this is peculiarly the case with the dentirostres 

 and conirostres of Cuvier's order Passeres, whose 

 bills are very differently formed in the different 

 genera. 



The Tenuirostres, or slender-bills, form a much 

 more natural division, though they too vary consider- 

 ably in the different genera, both in the kind of their 

 food and in the places and manner of finding it. 

 Their bills in general accord with the name in being 

 slender ; but the smallness of their diameter is no 

 indication of weakness. On the other hand, they are 

 very firm in their texture; and though, from their 

 form, they are not so well adapted for breaking hard 

 substances between the mandibles as the larger 

 hard bills of the former division, they can reach their 

 food in places which are not accessible to thesr. 



