538 



NATURAL HISTORY OF BIRDS. 



We may here be allowed to quote Mr. Sharpe's words with regard to a group of 

 nine-primaried birds which we are now going to mention briefly, viz : the DIC^EID^E, 

 which, according to him and most other authors, cannot be separated far from the 

 Nectariniida?. He introduces them in the following words : " The members of this 

 family if we are allowed thus to designate a group of birds which cannot be defined in 

 exact terms are principally Indian and Australian, a few representatives being found 

 on the west coast of Africa. Although resembling the sun-birds in habits, very few 



FIG. 268. Tichodroma miirnria. Alpine wall-creeper. 



have the slender, creeper-like bill of the latter family ; and they differ also in their 

 nesting habits, their nest being a beautiful purse-like structure of felted materials." 



Several of the forms herein included are peculiar to the Sandwich Islands, and 

 with the rest of that most interesting fauna of surviving forms will soon become 

 extinct. On those isolated islands they have evolved several curiously specialized 

 generic forms, with bills ranging from that of the curiously curved beak of Hemi- 

 gnathus, which has the upper mandible nearly twice as long as the lower one, to the 



