t, 



624 The Sparrow-like Birds 



short and broad in others; in some it is decidedly hooked. The wings in the 

 normal Chatterers contain ten well-formed primaries, but in a small group 

 of genera the second (ninth) primary is much shortened and reduced in size. 

 The tail is for the most part relatively short and squared. In a majority of cases 

 the legs and feet are rather small, as befitting the strictly arboreal life of the birds, 

 while in other groups of genera the feet are stouter and more fitted for terrestrial 

 life. The habits of nidification are various, some building a platform of sticks, 

 others suspending their elaborately constructed nests from the limbs of trees, 

 while still others deposit the eggs in holes in trees. The food of these birds 

 consists very largely of fruits, seeds, berries, and occasional insects. 



Thirty genera and nearly one hundred and fifty species of Chatterers are 

 now known, ranging from southern Mexico to northern Argentina, and being 

 perhaps most abundant in Central America, Amazonia, and southeastern Brazil. 

 They are divided by Mr. Sclater and others into some six groups or subfamilies, 

 and while all of these embrace species of more or less interest it will only be 

 possible in the present connection to select a few of the more striking or better- 

 known forms, which must be taken as examples of the rest. Of the members 

 of the first group (Tityrina} which are distinguished at once by the abnormally 

 reduced second external primary, little need be said beyond the fact that they 

 are plain-colored birds, the sexes usually being very different in coloration. So, 

 also, the members of the second subfamily (Lipaugind) are for the most. part 

 dull and unattractive birds, smaller than the last and having broader, very 

 slightly hooked bills. With compressed and very distinctly hooked bills, on 

 which account they have sometimes been placed with the Tyrant-birds, are the 

 members of the third group (Attilin<z). 



Cocks-of-the-Rock. This brings us to the confines of the fourth group 

 (RupicolincK), 1 the typical genus of which embraces the marvelous and beauti- 

 ful Cocks-of-the-Rock (Rupicola). They are large birds for the family, being 

 twelve or thirteen inches long, with rather short but very strong legs and feet, 

 for their habits are terrestrial, and a rather high, compressed bill which is slightly 

 notched at the tip. They have a very large, elevated, and compressed crest 

 which almost conceals the upper mandible, while in the male the wing is curi- 

 ously modified in that the inner web of the outermost primary is cut away from 

 the tip. ' The tail is rather short and squared and the feathers of the shoulders 

 and vicinity are more or less soft and plume-like. The sexes are very different 

 in coloration, the males being largely a brilliant orange, orange-yellow, or orange- 

 red throughout, and the females a dull olive-brownish. Of the three species 

 the best-known is R. rupicola of Guiana and Amazonia, in which the wings are 

 brown with a broad white transverse bar, the wings and tail being black in R. 

 peruviana, which ranges from Venezuela to Bolivia and along upper Amazonia. 

 The third species (R. sanguinolenta), which is similar to the last but has the 

 plumage blood-red, occurs in western Ecuador and Colombia. 



1 Ridgway has recently raised this group to full " family " rank (Rupicolidos) on the ground 

 of certain structural details connected with the main artery of the thigh. 



