202 BIRDS' NESTS 



describe them in the present chapter. We therefore 

 pass on to the Tyrant Birds (Tyrannidas), another 

 family of birds strictly confined to the New World, 

 many members of which construct the open type of 

 nest, either placed amongst vertical growing twigs 

 and branches, or slung hammock-wise from some 

 horizontal or drooping forking limb. The chief 

 materials employed by these birds are twigs, fibres, 

 grass, moss, wool, hair, and lichens, cob-webs being 

 used for binding purposes. As this family contains 

 some four hundred species, distributed over nearly 

 the whole of America, and especially abundant in the 

 tropics, a vast amount of variation in the architecture 

 is presented, in order to bring the nest into harmony 

 with an equally extensive diversity of conditions. It 

 would therefore be impossible with the space at our 

 disposal here even to describe the salient character- 

 istics of such a large assemblage of nests. Our next 

 family, also confined to the Neotropical region, con- 

 tains the Chatterers (Cotingid^), in which there are 

 several very distinct types of architecture. Some of 

 these have already been described, as, for instance, 

 that of Rupicola {conf. p. 103); others come into the 

 class of domed nests dealt with in a future chapter, 

 whilst others yet again are open and cup-shaped, and 

 must be included in our present division. These 

 latter are placed in the forks of trees, and formed of 

 moss and lichens. Passing over the Pittas with their 

 domed globular nests, we reach yet another great 



