144 
BEAUTIFUL BIEDS. 
Icterince ; the feet are large, the middle front toe 
being shorter than the tarsus, and united to the 
outer at the base ; the first quill in the wing is merely 
rudimental, and the second and third the longest. 
Indigenous to Southern America is anotlier inter- 
esting group, forming the sub-family IcterincE, or 
Hangnests. Like the rest of the tribe, they are gre- 
garious and wary. They are never, however, accord- 
ing to Mr. Swainson, seen upon the ground, but feed 
upon fruits and coleopterous insects, which they find 
upon the trees. They are conspicuous for the -inge- 
nuity they display in the construction of their nests, 
which are of a long purse-like form, of laborious and 
elegant structure, and suspended from the slender 
branches of lofty trees. The bill in some of the 
species is large, very thick at the base, remarkably 
pointed at the tip, and completely conic ; the upper 
mandible is expanded at its base into a broad oval 
plate, which advances far on the front, and divides the 
frontal feathers. The commissure is straight, but 
an^ulated at the base. 
^ I 
The most remarkable feature in the economy of 
these birds is the mode in which they construct their 
nests. Some of the birds being of a large size, nearly 
as big again as a thrush, require a large nest, and it 
is frequently found measuring between four and five 
feet in depth. It is a beautiful and novel sight to the 
European, says Mr. Swainson, to see hundreds of these 
pensile fabrics suspended from the extremity of the 
branches of a single tree, generally the most lofty, 
and accompanied by the birds themselves, either 
thickly crowded on the branches, or going and re- 
