186 FOOD OF CONIROSTRES. 



readily be understood, that at those very times when 

 these birds stand most in need of food, that is. while 

 they are preparing their nests and reEiring their broods, 

 the supply of seeds for them is very limited compared 

 with what it is in winter. The groundsels, and 

 various other wild plants, keep flowering and pro- 

 ducing seeds with little interruption all the year 

 round ; but the supply from these, even where farming 

 is conducted in the most slovenly manner, would not 

 support the tenth of those flocks which feed on the 

 fields in winter. Accordingly, though there are a 

 few tribes which eat the seeds of those plants, these 

 form but a small portion of the whole, and there are 

 very few genera which are not, to some extent or 

 other, animal in their feeding during the nesting time. 

 It is worthy of observation, too, that at that season 

 they disperse over the breadth of the country, so 

 that more than the pair, or the family, when these 

 grow up, are seldom seen together, or in anywise 

 associated, even though the same species should 

 collect in thousands during winter. This is a wise 

 provision in nature ; for the birds crowd to the fields 

 at the very time when their presence there is most 

 useful ; and again, when their individual labours are 

 more immediately required in reducing the numbers 

 of insects and worms, they are distributed over the 

 country. 



The bills of those birds are familiarly exemplified 

 in that of the common house sparrow, which may be 

 considered as about the average. As is the case in 

 the birds of prey, the smallest bills in this order or 

 division are often the most efficient. The tits are 

 perhaps those which, among our native birds, connect 

 the conirostres most immediately with the feeders on 

 tree insects, or rather, perhaps, with the omnivorous 



