Ch. 18: The Woodhewer Family

_(Dendrocolaptidae.)_

The South American Tree-creepers, or Woodhewers, as they are sometimes
called, although confined exclusively to one continent, their range
extending from Southern Mexico to the Magellanic islands, form one of
the largest families of the order Passeres; no fewer than about two
hundred and ninety species (referable to about forty-six genera) having
been already described. As they are mostly small, inconspicuous,
thicket-frequenting birds, shy and fond of concealment to excess, it is
only reasonable to suppose that our list of this family is more
incomplete than of any other family of birds known. Thus, in the
southern Plata and north Pata-gonian districts, supposed to be
exhausted, where my observations have been made, and where, owing to the
open nature of the country, birds are more easily remarked than in the
forests and marshes of the tropical region, I have made notes on the
habits of five species, of which I did not preserve specimens, and
which, as far as I know, have never been described and named. Probably
long before the whole of South America has been "exhausted," there will
be not less than four to five hundred Dendrocolaptine species known. And
yet with the exception of that dry husk of knowledge, concerning size,
form and colouration, which classifiers and cataloguers obtain from
specimens, very little indeed--scarcely anything, in fact--is known
about the Tree-creepers; and it would not be too much to say that there
are many comparatively obscure and uninteresting species in Europe, any
one of which has a larger literature than the entire Tree-creeper
family. No separate work about these birds has seen the light, even in
these days of monographs; but the reason of this comparative neglect is
not far to seek. In the absence of any knowledge, except of the most
fragmentary kind, of the life-habits of exotic species, the
monograph-makers of the Old World naturally take up only the most
important groups--i.e. the groups which most readily attract the
traveller's eye with their gay conspicuous colouring, and which have
acquired a wide celebrity. We thus have a succession of splendid and
expensive works dealing separately with such groups as woodpeckers,
trogons, humming-birds, tanagers, king-fishers, and birds of paradise;
for with these, even if there be nothing to record beyond the usual
dreary details and technicalities concerning geographical distribution,
variations in size and markings of different species, &c., the little
interest of the letter-press is compensated for in the accompanying
plates, which are now produced on a scale of magnitude, and with so
great a degree of perfection, as regards brilliant colouring, spirited
attitudes and general fidelity