362 The Bird 



who is sudcleiil}' forced to work at some arduous manual 

 labour, they have entered on new ways of life — ways to 

 which their structure seems but ill adapted, and yet, 

 by the very daring of their efforts, they have won success. 



The great-grandfathers, many times removed, of the 

 modern Families of l)irds lived lives which were much 

 broader and more generalized than those of their descend- 

 ants of to-day, and it is this variety, this seeking of new . 

 opf)ortunities and overcoming of new difficulties by the 

 feathered sons, which makes the study of birds so fascinat- 

 ing a pursuit. 



Let us follow the diverging paths of the later gen- 

 erations of some of our own birds. Take the wood- 

 warblers of our own countrv. The onlv wav we can 

 imagine what the earlier ancestors of the warl)lers were 

 like is to make a comf)osite of the whole Family. All 

 its members are tinv, delicate birds which feed on the 

 smallest insects, their bills are slender and pointed, and 

 their feet and toes like the finest wire. Yet, far from 

 waiting for Nature to alter these delicate organs, they 

 have struck out boldly for themselves and, to avoid a 

 fatal competition witli one another, have varied tlieir 

 methods of hunting and the limits of their preserves so 

 successfully that a dozen may li\e in close proximity 

 and yet never poach on each other's domains. 



Our well-known little Maryland or Northern Yellows- 

 throat has chosen the low bushes of a marsh as his sphere 

 in life, and. although lie has hidden his face behind a black 

 mask, yet he is a true warl:)ler, and the blood of his fathers 

 forces him up now and then into some exposed position. 



