DISTRIBUTION OF BIRDS 359 



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

 twilight of 5, 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 unifor- 

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

 has at the same time its peculiar ornithological features, that 

 blend harmoniously with the surrounding world of plants and 

 animals, and, taking a prominent part in the aspect of nature, 

 at once attract the attention of the stranger. 



In this respect, as in so many others, the warmer regions of 

 the globe have a great advantage over those of the temperate 

 and glacial zones ; and here, where warmth and moisture call 

 forth an exuberant vegetation, they produce an equal multipli- 

 city of animal forms, among which many birds rival the most 

 gorgeous flowers by the splendour of their plumage. 



On turning to each continent in particular, we again find 

 each endowed with its peculiar genera of birds, and thus, though 

 tropical America has many of its feathered tribes in common 

 with the torrid zone of the Old World, it enjoys the exclusive 

 possession of the Toucans, Colibris, Crotophagi, Jacamars, Anis, 

 Dendrocolaptes, Manakins, and Tangaras ; while the Calaos, the 

 Souimangas, the Birds of Paradise, and many others, are con- 

 fined to the eastern hemisphere. A complete review of all these 

 various forms of the feathered creation would fill volumes : my 

 narrow limits necessarily confine me to a brief account of those 

 tribes which are either the most remarkable, or the most widely 

 different from the birds which we are accustomed to see in 

 Europe. 



