Tour the Smithsonian After its First Fifty Years

The ornithological part of the National Museum was among the very first to be advanced, owing to the fact that the early men at the Smithsonian were especially interested in birds. The " types " of hundreds of novel species (including all of Audubon's and most of Wilson's) are treasured in its store-rooms, and the laboratory, is still the scene of original investigation.

The mounted collections of birds now occupy the lower matn hall of the old Smithsonian building; but these are only a portion of the Museum's possessions in ornithology, the catalogue enumerating nearly 150,000 specimens, about four-fifths of which are held in reserve for study and exchange, The laboratory occupies a gallery of this hall.

At the head of the bird-army stand the singers (Oscines), embracing the thrushes, shrikes, wrens, warblers, titmouses, blackbirds, Crows, and their close allies; add to them the fly-catching Clamatores and you complete the order Passeres or " perchingbirds."

Among the thrushes are some of our most familiar song-birds,-robin, wood-thrush, brown thrasher and his sickle-billed western cousins, cat-bird and mockingbird. In Europe the " blackbird," throstle and nightingale are popular favorites belonging to the same ranks.

The thrushes are soberly clothed, omnivorous birds, and occur in all regions of the world save New Zealand. Closely allied are several large families, of which the English robin-redbreast, and our bluebird, kinglets, and waterouzel are well-known representatives. A picturesque account of our ouzel will be found in Scribners Monthly for February, 1878.

Following come the group called wrens, creepers, nuthatches, titmouses and bulbuls,- all small, inconspicuous and of secretive habits.

Next to these stand the titlarks (Motacillidae) and then come the wood warblers (Sylvicolidae), a large family peculiarly American, and charmingly characteristic of our wood-lands and orchards. They form, as a group, one of the prettiest parts of any collection of birds, and especially of those of temperate regions where bright colors in plumage are scantily displayed as compared with the radiance of the tropical avifauna.

Beyond the wood warblers stand the birds of paradise, of which Wallace in his " Malay Archipelago," and various other writers on the Indo-Chinese regions, have given full histories. The next two families are the Vireonidae and the Laniidae, which betray close structural resemblance but are very different in behavior. The vireos or greenlets, of the former family, are elegant little birds in olive-green and yellow which haunt our treetops, sing deliciously, live upon insects and construct those beautiful pensile nests, entwined with spider's silk, and decorated with flowers and lichens, which are among the neatest products of bird-workmanship; while the shrikes of the second family, are flesh-eaters, and hawk-like.

Here come in the families of Australian honey-suckers the tiny sun-birds of India and Africa often adorned with brilliant metallic plumage used in making jewelled ornaments by the oriental goldsmiths; the gay little flower-peckers; and the sugar-birds of tropical America. They follow the wax_wings, of which our cherry-birdis an example, characterized by the curious tips, like red sealing-wax, on the wings and tail quills. This brings us to the familiar swallows, the gaudy semi-tropical tanagers, the saucy finch, sparrow and bunting family (Fringillidae) and the weaver-birds.

The Fringillidae is one of the most numerous (over 500 species) and cosmopolitan of the avian families, existing In every quarter of the world saving that land of exception,-Australia. All of its members are small, the American grosbeaks figuring as the giants of their tribe. The majority are soberly streaked and spotted in browns, though many are most brilliantly dressed; their food is mainly seeds, except in nestingtime; they have melodious voices while some are among the leaders of the sylvan choir; and they contribute the great majority of cage-birds kept for our amusement, typified by the canary-bird, a native of the Canary islands. and still flving wild there in a suit of mixed yellow and green, which we have varied by selective breeding.

The Ploceidae, or weaver-finches, belong principally to tropical and southern Africa, and in general habits are much like the Fringillidae. Their interest for us is chiefly derived from the remarkable faculties they display in sociable ncst-building, accounts of which have been published by almost every naturalist-traveler in the regions specified-especially in South Africa. H. O. Forbes, in his valuable " Naturalist's Wanderings" (Harper's), has an instructive account of the weaver-birds of the South Sea islands.

The Icteridae, next in order, is an American family, embracing the orioles, blackbirds, etc.

The nests of the orioles generally are purse-shaped bags woven of hempen fibres, or of grass, and suspended upon the ends of the pliant twigs of tall trees. The familiar structure of our eastern Baltimore oriole, or "hang-nest" is a good example (for fuli account see " Friends Worth Knowing," chap. x), and one imitated in an exaggerated form by many western and southern species, especially in Central America. The blackbirds (Quiscakus Agelaeus, etc.) are remarkable for the enormous flocks into which they gather in the autumn, preparatory to the southward migration. They are the pest of the maize-fields, but destroy millions of grubs and noxious insects in compensation for the seed-corn they steal. Wilson should be read on this point. The saucy and pied-coated bobolink; the ubiquitous cow-bird (Molothrus) which has a cuckoo-like habit of dropping its eggs one by one in other birds' nests, leaving the young one hatched therefrom to be a foundling-charge upon the victimized parents, and which abounds in cattle regions from Canada to Patagonia; and the musical meadow-lark, need no special description. The last is a close relative of the Old World family Sturnidre, of which the beloved starling, so dear to the English emigrant, is a fair specimen; and also of the larks (Alaudidae) of which North America can boast only one species against more than loo in the Old World, the type of whichis the skylark " that at heavens gate sings."

With the ravens, crows and jays, the class of " singing birds " comes to an inglorious end, the next family introducing the lesser section of Passeres called Clamatores, which includes the flycatchers, the creepers, the ant-thrushes, the pittas and the Iyre-birds. First to be con Ridered are the Tyrannidae, a family of purely insectivorous birds containing about 330 species, yet confined to the western hemisphere.

The tyrant flycatchers are small birds, not given gaudy colors as a rule, nor elegance of form. They are rather short-legged, large-headed, long of wings and tail, and possessed of flat, well-whiskered beaks of the most suitable form for capturing insects on the wing, as the whole family is exDert in doing and hence are said to be " tyrants " of the insect-world. They are not singers, but screamers and whistlers, though the cry of the smaller kinds has often a pleasantly plaintive sweetness, and has given our northern varieties the popular name " pewee." Only a small part of the family belongs to the United States, where the common kingbird or bee-martin the phcebe-bird, whose massive home of mud and moss is placed in pleasant confidence within our buildings as well as on the fern-clad ledge of rocks; and the sad wood-pewee are examples. Toward the tropics, as usual, longer tails and beaks, and brighter colors prevail. The scissor-tail of Texas, for Instance, wears a plumage largely white, with rich rose-color under the wings, and two of the tail-feathers are prolonged into curving plumes more than equal to the length of the whole body, which are gracefully crossed and recrossed in flight.

The Pipridse is a family of small fly-catchers and fruit-eaters called manakins, belonging to the tropical forests of America. These birds are extremely lively, utter startling cries, and are clothed in silky plumages resplendent with brilliant hues. The peculiar behavior of one species in Nicaragua, known to the natives as ebbaitader, " the dancer," is described at length in the Proc. Nat. Mus., vi, 384.

Another extensive family of flycatchers, specially called " chatterers," because of the indescribable sounds made by their voices, is that of the Cotingidae, all the hundred or so species of which are confined to equatorial forests. Among them are " some of the most remarkable of American birds, for such we must consider the azure and purple cotingas, the wine-colored, white-winged pompadour, the snowy carunculated bell-birds. the orange colored cocks-of-the-rock, and the marvellously plumed umbrella-birds ."

The bell-birds are so called from the resemblance qf their voices to a muffled bell. They are compact in form, about the size of a pigeon, and white is the prevailing color of the plumage of the males; the third and fourth quills of the wings are so elongated as to extend to the centre of the tail, which is short and rounded. The ornaments of this genus are its main peculiarity however. In one species the bridles and throat are bare of feathers, and the color of verdigris. In another the front of the throat is bare (in the male) and studded with small, fleshy, worm-shaped appendages, of a deep brown color. In another, entirely snow-white, the male is furnished with a wattle at the base of the beak, which is hollow, black and muscular; a fourth spedes has three such wattles. When the birds are quiet these appendages are placid and pendent; but when aroused by some emotion they become erect, distended and rigid, presenting a mest remarkable and formidable appearance. Charles Waterton and many other travellers have written with enthusiasm of the voice of the bell-birds. " Its loud, clear note," says the Prince Von Wied, of the Brazilian CH. medicallis " is distinctly heard to a very considerable distance, as it rings, bell-like, at regular intervals, through the surrounding silence, or is rapidly repeated with a force and peculiarity of tone that strongly resembles the blows made by a smith upon his anvil." Many may be heard in concert, as described by Forbes, in Java.

Cock-of-the-rock is a name belonging to several species of the Rupicolidae, each of which is splendidly dressed and adorned with a crest of brilliant feathers, overhanging the beak like an oldfashioned military chapeau. They are fruit-eaters, and spend most of their ttime near or on the ground. The quaint bald fruitcrows, which look like caricatures of Capuchin friars- and ' the umbrella-birds are also members of this wonder ful tribe.

In the group of tropical birds, adorned with striking colors, and full of interest, which completes the list of Passeres, the most noteworthy are the Iyre-birds (Menura) of India. and their relatives (Pteroptechus) of South America. The former forms a part of the heraldic bearings of Australia, and the latter is the special pride of the Chilians. Dr. Alfred Bennett, Dr. Gould, A. R Wallace, Ei. O. Forbes, and others, writers upon Australasia, have indited very fully the history of the Menura; while Darwin's "Voyage of a Naturalist" (Harper & Brothers), gives an easily accessible history of the American forms.

We now pass to a new grand division of birds and take up the order Picaria, a group comprising such ill-assorted elements as woodpeckers, toucans, cuckoos, todies, trogons, kingfishers, hornbills, goatsuckers, swifts and humming-birds. They are birds of the forest, and as these are broadest in tropical America, it is there that the greatest proportion of this order is found, though no region of the world is without its representatives. Mr. Wallace's remarks upon the geographical distribution of this order, are most entertaining and instructive.

The list of families begins with the humming-birds (Trochilidae), those gems of ornithology peculiar to the New World, and concerning which the temptation to write a long chapter is hard to resist. Their closest allies are the long-winged Cypselidae, of which our chimney swift (improperly termed " swallow,") and the salangine of Malaysia, are prominent members.

The nests of all swifts are much alike, and strikingly different from those of other birds. They are formed in the shape of small cups, resting upon branches, or, more generally, in the shape of half-cups, glued bracket-wise upon the inside of a hollow tree, an old chimney, or the walls of a cavern; and the materials are a few twigs or stems of plants glued together by the saliva of the bird, which hardens in drying. It is the nests of one sort of these swifts which are sought after by the Chinese as the material for their celebrated dainties, bird's-nest soup and jelly. This swift is called the salangine, and inhabits in flocks certain caverns on the sea-coast of Java, and the neighboring main_ land. They are protected by law, and nests can be taken only at certain times and in certain quantities. The procuring of them is very dangerous, since the nest-seekers must be lowered by ropes to the mouth of the caverns, from cliffs overhanging the surf at great heights, and ugly accidents occur. Hence they form an expensive luxury.

The swifts have wide-gaping and well-bristled mouths, but are greatly excelled in this respect by the silky plumaged, Caprimulgidae, of which the fern-owl of Great Britain, and the whippoorwill of America, are familiar types. Passing by a number of groups of tropical birds, many of which have striking plumages and remarkable habits, we come to the king-fishers, the European and American types of which are dull of hue beside the prismatic beauty of the oriental varieties, whose feathers are in great demand for making certain articles of of jewelry. Next to these stand the strange horn-bills of the African and Asiatic forests, vhose huge beaks are their most prominent feature; their analogue in America is the toucan family.

" The toucans form one of the most remarkable and characteristic families of the neotropical region, to which they are strictly confined. They differ from all other birds by their long feathered tongues, their huge yet elegant bills, and the peculiar texture and coloration of their plumage. Being fruit-eaters and strictly adapted for an arboreal life, they are not found beyond the forest regions; but they nevertheless range from Mexico to Paraguay, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific."

With the families of cuckoos and wood-peckers, the great variety within which may be learned by an examination of the cases in the birdroom, we come to the the fourth order, that of the Raptares, or birds of prey, the five or six hundred species of which divide into the wellrecognized groups,-owls, hawks, eagles and vultures.

The owl famly is represented in every corner of the world, from the very poles to the remote oceanic islands, and no one of its members is likely to be mistaken for anything else. Their big staring eyes, the silence and darkness with which they are usually enshrouded, and the unearthly expressions of their voices, long ago gave to owls an uncanny significance which has connected them with the evil and gloomy myths, weird tales and eliagic poetry of all nations. Though these old superstitions have been shuffled off our minds pretty completely yet there still remains an unjust prejudice against the birds, contributing to their destruction; instead of which the owl should be cherished in rural districts (though hardly in town gardens) as a friend rather than an enemy of the farmer, since he destroys a great quantity of vermin.

The word hairs is probably allied in its origin to halve, and contains the idea of seizing. The word falcon, on the contrary, is derived from the Latin and describes the hooked claws, which are like a sickle ( faze). Hawks are interesting, historically, chiefly through the royal (and royally cruel) sport of falconry, which is of very ancient origin in the East. Only one section, however, of the great family Falconidae could be used in falconry. Be sides this there is scattered over the world a large series of eaeles. the largest cfennoect anti most i' majestic " because most lethargic, of the tribe; of buzzard-hawks like our common " red-tail '; of kites, whose slender forms and swift, graceful flight make the most beautiful of their race- and of fishing-hawks which haunt the shore of the sea, or of large lakes, and obtain their food by diving from. great heights. Our American fish-hawk or osprey is also a dweller in Europe, Asia and Africa.

This brings us to the carrion-feeding, vultures at the head of which stands the condor,-the largest bird known, except the ostrich. The principal species are the bearded vulture of the Old World, of which the strongest and best known forms are the dreaded lammergeir of the Swiss Alps, and the famous condor, which has noxv become so great a terror in the Andean region, that large rewards are offered by the government for killing n. In the United States, we have a vulture resident on the Pacific coast, and the omnipresent and useful turkey buzzard,or carrion crow, of the southern half of the Union, where it enjoys protection as a scavenger.

It is one of the curiosities of the natural classification based upon structure, that next to that sentimental type of ferocity, the falcon should stand an emblem of gentleness-the dove; yet immediately following the carnivorous Ra,blergs come the grain and fruit-eating pigeons. After these have been inspected the visitor passes in review the curassow and guan family, the quail-like tinamous, and then the Asiatic pheasants, jungle-fowl, pea-fowl, and other supposed progenitors of our barnyard poultry. Next to these stands the turkey.

The turkey (Meleagridae) is so distinctly North American, that the sensible Franklin wished its image put upon our coins as the national emblem. It once ranged from Guatemala widely northward, and was domesticated by the ancient Mexicans. sent to Europe by Cortez, it speedily became acclimated, and its origin had been forgotten when the Puritans returned it to New England as a domestic fowl.

The grouse, partridges, quails and allied forms are called Tetraonide, and are familiar to all sportsmen under the name of " game-birds." They are scattered all over the globe, but are particularly plentiful in the far East. A great number are tropical, but some, like the ptarmigans, are denizens of the extreme north and of the borders of alpine snow-fields.

Restricted space prevents my giving any detailed account of the waterbirds. They may be traced through the exhibition cases in the following order: Herons, egrets, bitterns and storks; ibises and spoon- bills; oyster-catchers, turnstones and the world-wide lapwing; plovers and woodcock; the snipes and sandpipers which make up the bulk of the numerous army of " beach-birds," including the godwits, teeters, ruffs, etc.

Then come the curlews, phalaropes, avocets, stilts, jacanas and the like; the various rails and crakes; and loons make a the gallinules, coots and similar " mudhens," with the comical " limpkin " of Florida; the cranes, awkward flamingo and graceful swan.

This closes an order and introduces swimming and diving birds, headed by geese and ducks of which North America possesses about fifty species. After the ducks follows the seafowl,-pelicans, cormorants, gannets, tropic-birds, frigates, and skimmers; next comes the great tribe of gulls and terns, forty-five species of which haunt our coasts; to be followed by the widewandering albatrosses, fulmars, shearwaters, and the many kinds of petrel, all of which are as black in plumage as the race of gulls is snowy-white.

The grebes " diver " group, and the list is closed by those polar birds of lowest organization, the auks , penguins, and guillemots, which throng upon the icy cliffs, feeding in the sea and themselves fed upon the natives of those inhospitable regions.

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