TROnCAL BIRD LIFE. U?y 



Lyre Bird — The Birds of Paradise — African Wenving-hirds— Social Gros-bcak 

 — The BavH — The Tailor-bird — The Honey Eaters — The Rock Warhler — Tlie 

 Dicfeum — The Bower-birds— The Talegalla — Birds of Passage. 



USEFUL in many respects to man, no class of animals is 

 more interesting or agreeable to him than tliat of the 

 Birds, whether we consider the beauty of their plumage, the 

 grace of their movements, the melody of their voice, or the 

 instinct that regulates their migrations and prompts them to 

 construct their nests ; so that tlieir study forms, without doubt, 

 one of the most attractive departments in the whole range of 

 natural history. 



But it is at the same time one of the most difficult, parti- 

 cularly in countries where man has not yet mastered the powers 

 of vegetation, v^/here numberless creepers and bush-ropes render 

 the forest impenetrable, and the pathless wilderness obstructs 

 the observer at eveiy step. Thus it is by no means surprising 

 that so many secrets still veil the life of the tropical birds — 

 that comparatively so little is known as yet of their economy 

 and mode of existence. ■ 



Many families of birds have a wdde range over the wliole 

 earth : falcons hover over the Siberian fir-woods, as over the 

 forests of the Amazons ; in every zone are found woodpeckers, 

 owls, and long-beaked martin-fishers, while thrushes enliven 

 with their song both the shades of the beech-woods and the 

 tv;ilight of the cocoa-nut groves. In the north and in the 

 south, fly-catchers carry destruction among the numerous insect- 

 tribes ; in every latitude, crows cleanse the fields of vermin ; and 

 swallows, pigeons, ducks, gulls, petrels, divers, and plovers fre- 

 quent the fields and lakes, the banks and shores in all parts of 

 the world. 



Thus the class of birds shows us a great similarity in the dis- 

 tribution of its various forms all over the earth ; and we find 

 the same resemblance extending also to their mode of life, their 

 manners, and their voice. The woodpeckers make everywhere 

 the forest resound with the same clear note, and the birds of 

 prey possess in every clime the same rough screech so consonant 

 to their habits, while a soft cooing everywhere characterises 

 the pigeon-tribes. But, notwithstanding this general imifor- 

 mity and this wide range of many families of birds, each zone 

 has at the same time its peculiar ornithological features, that 



