CHAPTEE XIII TANAGEES 



Fam. TANAGHID^ 



TANAGEES are amongst the most characteristic birds of the 

 Western Hemisphere, being strictly confined to America, 

 like their near relatives the SylvicolidcB — like the Icteridce, an- 

 other Oscine family — like the Olamatorial family Tyrannidce, or 

 the Picarian tribe of the Hummingbirds, Trochilidce. Though 

 poorly represented in North America, by only a single genus, 

 Pyranga, they abound in species and individuals in the warmer 

 parts of both continents. More than three hundred species are 

 recognized by late authorities, and these are ranged under some 

 sixty or seventy of the genera of modern systematists, or sched- 

 nle-draugliters. These birds are famed for the beauty and 

 variety of their coloration, being among those most frequently 

 exhibited in the show-cases of the bird-stuffers and milliners, 

 as well as on the head-wear of fashionable ladies, who have 

 degenerated into walking advertisements of wretched taxi- 

 dermy in their rage for barbaric ornamentation of their persons. 

 The style used to be to wear plumes selected either for their 

 beauty of coloration or their gracefulness of shape ; but the 

 itch of savagery has broken out with aggravated symptoms, to 

 be appeased with nothing short of an ornithological museum. I 

 once counted the feathers of no fewer than fifteen different 

 kinds of birds on the dress of an Indian squaw ; but then her 

 alleged husband had one necklace of grizzly-bear claws and 

 another of human finger-tips; and circumstances alter cases, 

 yoa know. It seemed to me less singular than the case of 

 another woman whom I examined with some care shortly after- 

 ward, on whose bosom rested a gilt tipped tiger'sclaw, from 

 whose ears depended two claws of the same animal, in whoso 

 hair nestled the greater part of the external anatomy of the 

 bird known as the sbitepoke, and to whose loins a live poodle- 

 dog was tied by a long blue string. Such a toilet, I think, 

 would be still more effective with the rouge and lily-white in 

 streaks instead of layers, and a fish-bone through the nose. 

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