South American Bird-Music

Abstract

MR. BURROUGHS, an American naturalist, in his “Impressions of some British Song Birds,” has said:—“Many of the American songsters are shy wood-birds, seldom seen or heard near the habitations of men, while nearly all the British birds are semi-domesticated, and sing in the garden and orchard. This fact, I had said, in connection with their more soft and plaintive voices, made our song-birds seem less to a foreign traveller than his own.” These words apply with much greater force to the birds of South America, the species being much more numerous and less well known than in the northern portion of the continent; while the true songsters are relatively fewer, owing to the presence of several large songless families, such as the tyrants, humming-birds, and others.