SINGING BIRDS. 



555 



Fig. 480. Warbling Vireo. From 

 Coues' Key. 



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 



Fig. 481 .Carolina 

 Coues' Key. 



Wax win 54 From 



