This sketch of the Dendrocolaptidae, necessarily slight
and imperfect, is based on a knowledge of the habits
of about sixty species, belonging to twenty-eight
genera: from personal observation I am acquainted
with less than thirty species. It is astonishing
to find how little has been written about these most
interesting birds in South America. One tree-creeper
only, Furnarius rufus, the oven-bird par excellence,
has been mentioned, on account of its wonderful architecture,
in almost every general work of natural history published
during the present century; yet the oven-bird does
not surpass, or even equal in interest, many others
in this family of nearly three hundred members.
MUSIC AND DANCING IN NATURE.
In reading books of Natural History we meet with numerous
instances of birds possessing the habit of assembling
together, in many cases always at the same spot, to
indulge in antics and dancing performances, with or
without the accompaniment of music, vocal or instrumental;
and by instrumental music is here meant all sounds
other than vocal made habitually and during the more
or less orderly performances; as, for instance, drumming
and tapping noises; smiting of wings; and humming,
whip-cracking, fan-shutting, grinding, scraping, and
horn-blowing sounds, produced as a rule by the quills.
There are human dances, in which only one person performs
at a time, the rest of the company looking on; and
some birds, in widely separated genera, have dances
of this kind. A striking example is the Rupicola,
or cock of-the-rock, of tropical South America.
A mossy level spot of earth surrounded by bushes is
selected for a dancing-place, and kept well cleared
of sticks and stones; round this area the birds assemble,
when a cock-bird, with vivid orange-scarlet crest
and plumage, steps into it, and, with spreading wings
and tail, begins a series of movements as if dancing
a minuet; finally, carried away with excitement, he
leaps and gyrates in the most astonishing manner,
until, becoming exhausted, he retires, and another
bird takes his place.
In other species all the birds in a company unite
in the set performances, and seem to obey an impulse
which affects them simultaneously and in the same
degree; but sometimes one bird prompts the others
and takes a principal part. One of the most curious
instances I have come across in reading is contained
in Mr. Bigg-Wither’s Pioneering in South
Brazil. He relates that one morning in the dense
forest his attention was roused by the unwonted sound
of a bird singing—songsters being rare
in that district. His men, immediately they caught
the sound, invited him to follow them, hinting that
he would probably witness a very curious sight.
Cautiously making their way through the dense undergrowth,
they finally came in sight of a small stony spot of
ground, at the end of a tiny glade; and on this spot,
