FOUR NEIGHBORS DIVERSE 



of them. Indeed there are so many kinds that instead 

 of telling about tanagers, waxwings, shrikes and vireos 

 all in one chapter to even things up, as we are doing 

 now, we might have to make a whole book about 

 the tanagers alone, for, actually, there are said to be 

 three hundred and fifty species of tanager in Central 

 and South America, a good many more kinds of birds 

 than we are telling about in this whole book. Of all 

 these tanagers, only five reach the southern border of 

 the United States, and only one, the Scarlet Tanager, 

 is found, except as a straggler, in our northeastern 

 districts. 



The four bird families named in the heading of this 

 chapter follow each other in this order in the classifica- 

 tion, except that we have taken out the swallows to 

 treat by themselves — ^yet it is curious and remarkable 

 how diverse these neighbors are. Not only are they 

 entirely distinct in form, habits and coloration, but, 

 taken as families, there are other interesting points of 

 difference. For instance, the tanagers, as we have 

 said, are a tremendously large group and are confined 

 to the Western Hemisphere; but of the waxwings, 

 which are American also, there are only two known 

 species that certainly belong to this group. The 

 shrikes, on the other hand, belong largely to the Eastern 

 Hemisphere, for out of two hundred kinds America 

 can boast of but two. The vireos are peculiarly 

 American, and there are fifty species, but of these we 

 only see six in northern and eastern North America. 



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