258 PERCHERS AND SINGERS 



so utterly barbarous and mean as to engage in, or permit, the 

 killing of our song-birds in order that they be used either as 

 food for biped pigs, or to adorn (?) the cheap millinery of 

 servant-girls? Never! 



Let it not be thought, however, that the Order Passeres 

 has not a good share of birds of beautiful plumage. In our 

 own fields and forests, behold the waxwing, the oriole, the 

 cardinal, the tanager, the grosbeak, the magpie, the jay and 

 the bobolink. The tropics contain the wonderful birds of 

 paradise, and a bewildering array of hummingbirds, co- 

 tingas, finches, ground thrushes and many others. 



If the temperate zone lacks anything in perching birds of 

 brilliant plumage, that lack is more than made up by the 

 singing birds. With all its wealth of bird life, brilliant and 

 plain, the tropics are generally silent, and a joyous or musical 

 bird song is rarely heard. Of the bird cries that one occasion- 

 ally hears, the majority are harsh and unpleasant squawks. 

 The tropical day has neither robin nor mockingbird, the 

 night no whippoorwill. True, there is the awful "brain- 

 fever" bird of the Indian night, but it is neither musical nor 

 joyous. One may spend months in the tropics, both of America 

 and of the Far East, and in all that time hear less of real bird 

 song than can be heard on many an American farm in one 

 day. 



As might be expected in a large Order of birds, the food 

 habits of the perchers cover a wide variety of foods. The 

 great majority prefer to live upon insects, and the young of all 

 species are absolutely dependent upon soft-bodied insects, 

 larvae and earthworms. Many birds are really limited to 



