FLYCATCHERS 337 



America, and is to be confounded with nothing but sphinx (hum- 

 mingbird) moths. One hears of "Hummingbirds" seen in the evening 

 about flower-beds. The mistake is not unnatural, and a correction is 

 sometimes received with incredulity. The birds spend but a compara- 

 tively small part of the time upon the wing. Whoever watches a female 

 busy about her nest will see her constantly perching here and there 

 in certain branches of the tree, preening her plumage and looking 

 about her. The male, at the same season, forgetful, to all appearance, 

 of his conjugal and parental duties, may be found at home day after 

 day on a dead twig in some tall tree, where he sits so constantly as to 

 make the observer wonder what he can be about, and when, if ever, he 

 takes his food. Further investigation, however, will show'that he makes 

 frequent and regular rounds of favorite feeding-places. A tall blue- 

 berry bush, for example, will be visited at short intervals as long as the 

 observer has patience to stand beside it. The Hummingbird is curiously 

 fearless. Sometimes one will probe a flower held in the hand, and when 

 they fly into houses, as they pretty often do, they manifest but the 

 smallest degree of suspicion, and will feed almost at once upon sugar 

 held between the lips. The old bird feeds the young by regurgitation 

 a frightful-looking act the food consisting largely of minute insects. 

 The young remain in the nest for some three weeks, and on leaving 

 it are at once at home on the wing. BRADFORD TORREY. 



XVII. ORDER PASSERES. PERCHING BIRDS. (Fig. 58.) 



"Doubtless every order of birds has had its day when, if it were not 

 a dominant type, it was at least sufficiently near it to be considered 

 modern; and as we review what is known to us of that great series of 

 feathered forms, from the Archseopteryx to the Thrushes, we can rea- 

 lize how varied has been the characteristic avifauna of each succeeding 

 epoch from the Jurassic period to the present. 



"Now has come the day of the order Passeres, the Perching Birds; 

 here belong our Flycatchers, Orioles, Jays, Sparrows, and Finches, 

 Vireos, Swallows, Wrens, Thrushes, and many others. A recent author- 

 ity classifies birds in thirty-four orders, but fully one-half of the 

 13,000 known species are included in the single order Passeres" 

 ("Bird-Life"). 



All our Passerine birds are born in an almost naked condition, having 

 only a mere trace of down on the feather-tracts of the upperparts of 

 the body. At its full development this natal down presents a soft, 

 fluffy appearance over the cowering nestlings. It is pushed outward 

 by the feathers of the Juvenal plumage, to the tips of which portions of 

 it may be seen adhering when the young bird leaves the nest. With 

 some passerine birds (e. g., Song Sparrow) this is at the end of only 

 seven days (Owen, Auk, 1899, p. 222). Compare this surprisingly rapid 

 development with that of a Noddy Tern, for instance, which does not 



