THE SEARCHERS (_Investigatores_).
The families which, according to natural arrangement, seem to constitute a
third division of the great class of birds are principally characterised
by the conditions under which they procure their food, viz., by
searching for it in situations where it can only be obtained by diligent
investigation or laborious exertion. Their diet is usually of a very mixed
description, consisting partly of insects and partly of materials derived
from the vegetable creation. Many of them were at one time considered to
subsist entirely upon the honeyed juices of the fruits and blossoms, among
which they spend the greater part of their lives; and, although it is now
generally admitted that the insects which abound in the nectared chalices
whence they draw their supplies constitute a principal article of their
nutriment, they are not the less on that account to be regarded as riflers
of the saccharine stores laid up for their use in many a beautiful cup
temptingly held forth for their enjoyment. Such are the Honeysuckers and
the gorgeously decorated Humming Birds, whose sumptuous garb would seem
literally intended to "gild refined gold and paint the lily." A second
important group, constituted likewise for the purpose of preying upon
insects, has been specially adapted to climb the trunks of trees in search
of the innumerable hosts of destroyers that lurk beneath the bark, or in
the crevices of wood in progress of decay. These constitute an extensive
family, well exemplified by the Woodpeckers; while others, furnished
with beaks and feet of very diverse structure, search everywhere for the
particular kind of nourishment upon which they are destined to subsist.
The name we have selected for this extensive division of the feathered
creation was first employed by Reichenbach, although not exactly in the
same sense as that in which we are going to apply the term, neither can
we hit upon any single character whereby all the species included under
this denomination can be easily designated; nevertheless, however they
may differ among themselves, there is a certain conformity in their
structure, and a general resemblance in their habits, which will probably
be appreciated when we have put the reader in possession of the details
contained in the following pages.
We shall, therefore, at once commence their history, by describing them
under the following headings.