Dendrocolaptidae

Dendrocolaptidae are the first in combining to act in concert, and that the birds of other families follow their march and associate with them, knowing from experience that a rich harvest may be thus reaped.

The Naturalist in La Plata 1881

If "colour is ever tending to increase and to appear where it is absent," as Dr. Wallace believes, then we ought to find it varying in the direction of greater brightness in some species in a family so numerous and variable as the Dendrocolaptidae, however feeble and in need of a protective colouring these birds may be in a majority of pases.

The Naturalist in La Plata 1881

Dendrocolaptidae, and that from these tropical forest groups have sprung the widely-diverging thicket, ground, marsh, sea-beach, and rock-frequenting groups.

The Naturalist in La Plata 1881

The explanation of the most striking features of the Dendrocolaptidae, their monotonous brown plumage, diversity of structure, versatile habits, and the marvellous development of the nest-making instinct which they exhibit is to be found, it appears to me, in the fact that they are the most defenceless of birds.

The Naturalist in La Plata 1881

There is, in the Dendrocolaptidae, a splendid harvest for future observers of the habits of South American birds: some faint idea of its richness may perhaps be gathered from the small collection of the most salient facts known to us about them I have brought together and put in order in this place.

The Naturalist in La Plata 1881

In like manner, the homely Dendrocolaptidae possess the genius for building, and an account of one of these small birds without its nest would be like a biography of Sir Christopher Wren that made no mention of his works.

The Naturalist in La Plata 1881

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.

The Naturalist in La Plata 1881

American creepers (Dendrocolaptidae), together with a large proportion of the wood-warblers (Mniotiltidae), the finches, the wrens, and some other groups.

Darwinism (1889) Alfred Russel Wallace 1868

"similar functional requirements frequently lead to the development of similar structures in animals which are otherwise very distinct" -- as we see in the tubular tongue in honey-eaters and humming birds -- we might have expected to find in the Dendrocolaptidae a better imitation of the woodpecker in so variable an organ as the beak, if not in the tongue.

The Naturalist in La Plata 1881