68 ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 



The characters of the family are as follows : a short 

 slender bill, straight at the base, slightly enlarged and 

 sometimes more or less curved towards the tip of the 

 upper mandible; nostrils covered by a cartilaginous 

 scale, and situated towards the anterior part of a soft 

 fleshy substance which surrounds the base of the bill 

 in the manner of a cere ; legs moderately robust, termi- 

 nating in four toes, the three anterior of which are 

 separated nearly to the base, having no intervening 

 membrane except that which is derived from the mar- 

 gins themselves, while the fourth or posterior one is 

 placed upon the same level with the rest ; and a tail 

 composed for the most part of twelve feathers. 



The birds thus characterized are natives of all the 

 warmer and more temperate regions of the earth ; and 

 live almost entirely upon seeds and berries. They pair 

 together with the strictest constancy, the male and 

 female sharing between them their common nest and 

 the care of the progeny which it contains. This nest 

 is sometimes built on the higher branches of trees, but 

 more commonly in thickets and copses, and occasionally 

 even on the ground or in the clefts of rocks. The 

 female lays twice or thrice a-year, and generally two 

 eggs at a time, on which she sits alternately with the 

 male, who takes her place for several hours during the 

 day while she is absent in search of food. When the 

 young are first hatched they are unfledged and blind, 

 and consequently unable to provide for themselves. 

 This task the parents fulfil, disgorging a portion of 

 their half-digested food into the mouths of their nest- 

 lings, over whom they watch with the most unremitting 

 attention. When the eggs are only two in number, 

 they are said almost uniformly to produce a male and a 

 female bird, which never separate, but attach themselves 

 to each other for life. 



