Such an enormous host are included under this head—nearly 6,000 out of the total of 13,000 known birds—and so great are the difficulties connected with their systematic arrangement, that it has been considered best to begin the present chapter with the highest instead of the lowest types of the group.
Photo by C. Reid] [Wishaw, N.B.
JACKDAWS.
It is believed that the jackdaw is the bird referred to by Shakespeare as the Russet-pated Chough (Midsummer-Night's Dream, iii. 2).
The extensive group of Perching-birds is defined mainly from the characters afforded by the structure of the voice-organ, and these are of much too technical a nature to be discussed here. Suffice it to say that, on account of these characters, the group is further divided into two sections, and each section again divided into two.
The Crows, Orioles, Finches, and Their Allies.
At the head of the tribe stands, by general though by no means universal consent, the Crow Family, of which the recognised chief is the Raven, a bird which has for thousands of years commanded a more than passing interest amongst mankind. Renowned as the truant from the Ark, or as the wonderful minister of the prophet Elijah, there are few even of the youngest amongst us who do not know of its striking personality. The poet and the dramatist have both made use of the raven, and it would seem that it has even found a place in the mythology of the Red Indian. The smaller relatives of this celebrated bird, the Rook, the Carrion-crow, and the Jackdaw, and more distantly the Jay and the Magpie, are doubtless as familiar to our readers as the raven.
Although probably unknown to many, the Chough, with its glossy black plumage and brilliant red bill and feet, is a British bird, and lives still in certain parts of England, though fast verging on extinction.
Another very remarkable member of the family is the Huia, and this on account of the fact that the male and female differ markedly in respect of the shape of the bill, this being in the female long and sickle-shaped, and in the male short and cone-shaped. This bird frequents the wooded regions of North Island, New Zealand, living upon grubs found in decaying wood, and on berries. The female procures the grubs by probing the holes which they have made in the sounder wood, the male by breaking away the decayed portions of the tree; but occasionally it happens that, having cleared away as much of the decayed material as possible, the latter is unable to reach his prey, in which case he calls up the female, and yields his find to her, to extricate with her longer bill. So great a difference in the form of the bill in the sexes of the same species is elsewhere unknown among birds.