202 Animal Life 
The Sugar-Birds (Cwrebide) of the West Indies and South America are small 
slender-billed species, often very brightly coloured, with apparently much the same 
habits as the Sun-Birds and Flower-Peckers of the Old World; they also build 
domed nests. 
The Honey-eaters (Meliphagide) of the Australian region are usually birds of fair 
size, though this varies; thei plumage is generally dull, and their bill slight and 
inclined to be long and curved, although usually shorter and stouter than in the 
Sun-Birds. Their nests are generally open ones of ordinary form. 
The Mamos (Drepanidide) are confined to the Sandwich Islands, and therefore 
not lkely to be mistaken for other birds; they resemble Sun-Birds or Finches, which 
are not native to those islands, having either slender or stout bills, often in the 
former case much curved. Their tints are red, yellow, or green, not metallic, and 
they have a peculiar smell. 
PASSERINE BIRDS 
With bills of a markedly conical shape, usually chiefly vegetable-feeders, and especially seed-eaters. 
The Finches (Fringiliide) are found nearly all over the world, and are ‘the most 
familiar of all birds in the persons of the Sparrow and Canary. Them bill is 
typically conical, and though seldom so stout as in the Hawfinch (Fig. 2), is never 
long or thin. ‘heir legs or wings may be either long or short, and the tail also 
varies; the nostrils are not noticeable, being just where the forehead-featherimg joins 
the base of the bill. The Buntings are included in this group. Finches usually make 
open nests, but a few build in holes, lke the sparrows. 
The Weavers (Ploceide), with which the Waxbills, Whydahs, and Nuns or Mannikins 
ave classed, are the characteristic Finches of the warm parts of the Old World. They 
are usually shorter in wing and stouter in bill and feet than the true finches. 
Moreover, the bill tends to run up on to the forehead in a peak, and the nostrils 
are sometimes exposed. The nest is usually covered, and often pendent. But for all 
this, the Plocerde@ are usually spoken of as finches, and should not properly be separated. 
The Tanagers (Yanagride) are American, and chiefly confined to the southern half 
of the New World. Their bills are more or less conical in form, and exhibit the 
nostrils exposed, but they vary in thickness of beak, some species being almost 
indistinguishable from thick-billed Finches, and others so slender in bill that they 
erade into the American Warblers (Mniotiltide). These birds are chiefly fruit-eaters, 
build open nests, and are often exceedingly brilliant and beautiful in colour. 
The Troupials, or Hang-Nests (Ictervde), are also an exclusively American family, 
but they are better represented than the Tanagers in the northern half of the continent, 
where they are often called, from their dark or yellow-pied plumage, ‘“‘ Blackbirds,” or 
“Orioles,” although they are by no means nearly related to those birds. Some are 
as big as crows, and they are usually larger than sparrows; their beak is noticeably 
conical, but varies much in length and thickness, some having it as stout as a 
sparrow’s, like the “ Bobolink” (Dolichonyx oryzivorus), and others as thin as a starling’s, 
such as the Meadow-Lark -(Stwrnella ludoviciana). The beak has a marked tendency 
to run up on the forehead, and the feet are strong. The food is both vegetable and 
animal, and the nest varies. In America these birds seem to represent the Starlings 
and Weavers of the Old World, and perhaps unite those groups. 
The Plant-Cutters (Phytotomide) of South America are vegetable-feeding birds 
much resembling Finches, but with the edges of the bill toothed and the back of the 
shank separately scaled with many small scales. They are very destructive to vegetation, 
and build open nests in bushes. 
