ORDER PASSERES. 491 



We insert a figure of a Blue-headed Tanager, with black 

 stripes, from a specimen in Drew's Collection at Plymouth. 

 The bill and legs are black, and the former has a line of deeper 

 black at its base. The head, neck, and breast are azure-blue, 

 with the sides of the neck marked Avith several lunated black 

 stripes; the belly and vent are white, covered, like the side of 

 the neck, with black patches ; the smaller wing- coverts, lower part 

 of the back, and insertion of the tail are like the head ; the rest 

 is black. We cannot identify this with any of the described 

 species, though there are several to which it seems to approxi- 

 mate. 



The Flycatchers, in general, are of a wild and solitary 

 character. Their physiognomy is sombre and distrustful, and 

 not without a certain expression of ferocity. As they are 

 obliged to seize upon their prey in mid-air, they are almost 

 always perched upon the summit of trees, and rarely descend 

 to the ground. As they are chasers of flies, their true country 

 must be in the southern regions of the globe. Accordingly, 

 for three or four species which are known in Europe, we 

 reckon in Africa, a great number, also in the warm climates of 

 Asia, and Australasia, and still more in America. In this last 

 continent we find the larger species which have been denomi- 

 nated Tyrants. As nature has increased the growth, and 

 multiplied the number of insects in the New World, so 

 has she opposed to them enemies more numerous and more 

 powerful. It is a trite observation, but one which the study 

 of nature illustrates at every step, that all in this world is 

 balanced : when evil exists there will always be found some 

 equiponderating good, and it rarely happens that any one 

 species, or genus, is suffered to multiply and extend, to the 

 serious prejudice of another. We see, it is true, every where 

 a great destruction of life, but we also see an equivalent 

 reparation ; we must not take a circumscribed or conventional 

 view of the grand operations of nature. What are myriads of 

 lives to that power, which, by a single volition, can call myriads 



