808 The Sparrow-like Birds 



Although the family is usually placed between the Tanagers and Wood 

 Warblers, Mr. F. A. Lucas, who has examined the internal structure of several 

 of the more typical forms, states that they differ in toto from the Tanagers and 

 are quite markedly different from the Wood Warblers, apparently finding their 

 nearest relatives among the Honeyeaters (Meliphagida) of Australasia. As 

 the anatomy and other internal structure are still unknown in more than half the 

 genera, it is evident, as Mr. Ridgway points out, that the determination of the 

 limits of the family, as well as its affinities, must remain for future study. 



The Honey Creepers are peculiar to the New World, being most abundantly 

 developed in the forest-clad basin of the Amazon and adjacent parts of Ecuador 

 and Colombia, extending also throughout the West Indies, where almost every 

 island has its peculiar form. A few species reach northward into Mexico, and 

 a single one has been found as a rare straggler on the Florida Keys. Accord- 

 ing to Mr. Ridgway, who has recently revised the group, they number about 

 eleven genera and some seventy-five species, a larger number than has usually 

 been considered as belonging here. They are all small birds, few exceeding 

 five inches in length, and often brightly colored with a mixed plumage of bright 

 blue, green and yellow, although some are more or less plain olive, gray, or even 

 black. They are active birds, often going about in flocks and feeding on minute 

 insects and probably nectar, which they extract from the bright-hued tropical 

 flowers, not after the manner of Hummingbirds, but by clinging in all sorts of 

 positions to the twigs and branches or even the flowers themselves. Some may 

 feed on ripe fruit, as Richmond reports the Green Honey Creeper (Chlorophanes 

 spiza) as feeding on ripe bananas in Nicaragua, while another species was 

 attracted by the cocoanut and bread-fruit trees, their bills always being covered 

 with a waxy substance which exudes from these fruits. 



The nests of the Honey Creepers are in general well-made structures, being 

 built of small twigs and lined with fine rootlets and grass stems/" When placed 

 in the open, that is in bushes and trees, the nests are usually more or less dome- 

 shaped, that of the Porto Rican Banana-quit (Coereba portoricensis) being about 

 six inches high and nearly five inches in greater outside diameter. Of the habits 

 of the St. Vincent Banana-quit, or Sucrier (C. saccharina), as it is called locally, 

 the late Mr. J. G. Wells writes as follows: "This pretty little bird is numerous 

 in Carriacou, and may be seen wherever there are blossoms, it being very fond of 

 the insects found in the petals; it is also partial to the fruit of the prickly pear. 

 It nests both in trees and in houses, the nests built outside being dome-shaped ; 

 those outside are generally built to suit a space between two beams or flat on the 

 sill. The Church at Hillsborough is a favorite nesting place of this bird. I have 

 seen a pair busily engaged building a nest on a chandelier in the church whilst 

 divine service was being held and over 500 persons were in the building. A pair 

 built a nest and reared their young in a tethering chain hung up for sale in one 

 of the shops. The eggs are three in number, of a dull white thickly spotted 

 with brown." Other and more brilliant members of the family belong to the 

 genera Cyanerpes, Dacnis, etc., in which there is much rich blue, violet-blue, 

 and yellow. 



