FINCH TRIBE ; TANAGERS; WHIDAH FINCH. 



433 



amount of food can be readily obtained. It would be difficult 

 for the tropical Birds to find enough nourishment for a numerous 

 offspring, during their short day ; and the Creator has wisely 

 ordained, [therefore, that their brood should be divided, as it 

 were, into two or more, and reared at different periods of the 

 year. But if this were the case with Birds of temperate climates, 

 the second brood could seldom be reared, for want of food and 

 warmth. The species of Tanager represented in Fig. 233, 

 receives its name from its musical powers, which are greater than 

 those of most others of the group, though far from equalling the 

 Finches and other songsters of temperate climates. 



390. Two other interesting genera of this family must be 

 noticed. One of these is the Vidua, or Whidah Finch, which is 

 remarkable for an astonishing development of plumage in the 

 male, during the breeding season. At other times the male 

 resembles the female. These beautiful Birds are natives of 



FIG. 234. WHIDAH FINCH. 



Western Africa, and are particularly abundant in the kingdom 

 of Whidah, whence their name. The term has been corrupted, 

 however, to Widaw-lird ; which was thought not inappropriate, 

 as if the splendid tail of the male dropped off, after the breeding 

 season, in melancholy for the loss of its mate. The genus Loxia, 

 or Crossbill, is an extremely remarkable one, on account of the 



