The Woodhewer Family. 237 



without the inferior charm of bright colour, offer no 

 attraction to the bird-painter, whose share in the 

 work of the pictorial monograph is, of course, all- 

 important. Yet even the very slight knowledge we 

 possess of this family is enough to show that in 

 many respects it is one richly endowed, possessing 

 characters of greater interest to the student of the 

 instincts and mental faculties of birds, than any of 

 the gaily-tinted families I have mentioned. 



There is, in the Dendrocolaptidas, a splendid 

 harvest for future observers of the habits of South 

 American birds : some faint idea of its richness may 

 perhaps be gathered from the small collection of the 

 most salient facts known to us about them I have 

 brought together and put in order in this place. 

 And I am here departing a little from the plan 

 usually observed in this book, which is chiefly 

 occupied with matters of personal knowledge, sea- 

 soned with a little speculation; but in this case I 

 have thought it best to supplement my own observa- 

 tions with those of others who have collected and 

 observed birds in South America,* so as to give as 

 comprehensive a survey of the family as I could. 



It is strange to find a Passerine family, numerous 

 as the Tree-creepers, uniformly of one colour, or 

 nearly so ; for, with few exceptions, these birds have 

 a brown plumage, without a particle of bright 

 colour. But although they possess no brilliant or 

 metallic tints, in some species, as we shall see, there 

 are tints approaching to brightness. Notwithstand- 



* Azara ; D'Orbigny ; Darwin ; Bridges ; Frazer ; Leotaud ; 

 Gaumer ; Wallace ; Bates ; Cunningham ; Stolzmann ; Jelski ; 

 Purnford; Gibson ; Burrows ; Doring ; White, &c. 



