CASSELL'S 



BOOK OF BIRDS 



THE SEARCHERS {hivestigatores). 



The families which, according to natural arrangement, seem to constitute a third division of the great 

 class of birds are principally characterised by the conditions under which they procure their food, 

 viz., by searching for it in situations where it can only be obtained by diligent investigation or 

 laborious exertion. Their diet is usually of a very mixed description, consisting partly of insects and 

 partly of materials derived from the vegetable creation. Many of them were at one time considered 

 to subsist entirely upon the honeyed juices of the fruits and blossoms, among which they spend the 

 greater part of their lives ; and, although it is now generally admitted that the insects which abound 

 in the nectared chaHces whence they draw their supplies constitute a principal article of their 

 nutriment, they are not the less on that account to be regarded as riflers of the saccharine stores laid 

 up for their use in many a beautiful cup temptingly held forth for their enjoyment. Such are the 

 Honeysuckers and the gorgeously decorated Humming Birds, whose sumptuous ^arb would seem 

 literally intended to " gild refined gold and paint the lily." A second important group, constituted 

 likewise for the purpose of preying upon insects, has been specially adapted to climb the trunks of 

 trees in search of the innumerable hosts of destroyers that lurk beneath the bark, or in the crevices of 

 wood in progress of decay. These constitute an extensive family, well exemplified by the Wood- 

 peckers ; while others, furnished with beaks and feet of very diverse structure, search everywhere for 

 the particular kind of nourishment upon which they are destined to subsist. 



The name we have selected for this extensive division of the feathered creation was first 

 employed by Reichenbach, although not exactly in the same sense as that in which we are going to 

 apply the term, neither can we hit upon any single character whereby all the species included under 

 this denomination can be easily designated ; nevertheless, however they may differ among themselves, 

 there is a certain conformity in their structure, and a general resemblance in their habits, which will 

 probably be appreciated when we have put the reader in possession of the details contained in the 

 following pages. 



We shall, therefore, at once commence their history, by describing them under the following 

 headings. 



THE CLIMBERS. 



The Climbing Birds (Scansor) are for the most part recognisable by their slender though 

 powerful body, short neck, and large head. The long or medium-sized beak is either strong and 

 VOL. III. — So 



