Although the order which includes song-birds is numerous in species and individuals, it is noticeably poor in really good songsters.
The birds of Natal are of many species; some have beautiful plumage, but none of them, with the exception of the canary, are to be considered as songsters.
Until recent years the forest birds did much to atone for this deficiency, for among them the tui and makomako rank high as songsters, while the apteryxes, kakapo, weka and stitch-bird are of peculiar interest to science.
In the taverns and low places of amusement haunted by those lettered songsters, on the open road and in the forests trodden by their vagrant feet, the deities of Greece and Rome were not in exile, but at home within the hearts of living men.
Listen to woodland symphony and learn how to identify the songsters from year-round residents to our summer migrants.