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It would not be possible within the present limits to mention in detail all the different modes of life of those species or groups which do not possess the tree-creeping habit; after them comes a long array of genera in which this habit is ingrained, and in which the greatly modified feet and claws are suited to a climbing existence.
In the numerous tree-creeping groups, which, seem as unrelated to the oven-bird as the woodpecker is to the hoopoe, we find a score of wonderfully different forms of beak; but many of them retain the probing character, and are actually used to probe in rotten wood on trees, and to explore the holes and deep crevices in the trunk.
As these genera comprise the largest half of the family, also the largest birds in it, we might expect to find in the tree-creeping the parental habit of the Dendrocolaptidae, and that from these tropical forest groups have sprung the widely-diverging thicket, ground, marsh, sea-beach, and rock-frequenting groups.
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