268 Mr. Swainson on the 



which the Tyrants are known to attack, and even to defeat, 

 during the season of rearing and providing for their offspring. 



The Tyranni, for the most part, catch their prey in the air, and 

 the organs of flight are consequently much developed ; the wings 

 are long and nearly pointed ; and the tail, although but slightly 

 divided in some species, is, in others, very long and remarkably 

 forked. These characters are, nevertheless, considerably modi- 

 fled as we depart from the typical species ; and totally disappear 

 in a few individuals, whose feeble wings and lengthened tarsi 

 seem to point them out as analogous to the Drymophilce and cer- 

 tain other groups among the Thamnophilince ; a resemblance 

 which is, in some degree, extended to the colour of their plumage. 



It may be adduced, as a proof of the accurate and comprehensive 

 views of the great Swedish naturalist, that with little or no op- 

 portunity of ascertaining the natural habits of these birds, he 

 should nevertheless have given them that place in his system, 

 which more recent discoveries have shewn to be in perfect unison 

 with nature. If the birds arranged by Linnaeus under the genus 

 Lanius, are considered as a family, divisible into other groups of 

 an inferior denomination, we shall find that one of these will com- 

 prise the Tyrannince. I have expressed myself more fully on this 

 point, in some general remarks on this family recently published, 

 wherein I have attempted to investigate the Laniadce with re- 

 ference to the quinary distribution of Mr, W. S. M'Leay. Since 

 those observations were printed, I have had reason to suspect that 

 the series in which I had conjectured the five principal groups 

 would have followed each other in natural affinity, is objection- 

 able, or in other words, that a relation of analogy has been mis- 

 taken for one of affinity : my suspicions on this head have been 

 confirmed by a subsequent perusal of the elaborate and philo- 

 sophic paper on the " Affinities of Birds," contained in the last 

 volume of the Linncean Transactions. And I am now induced to 

 think that the Tyrannince will be found to occupy an intermediate 

 station between the sub-families of Edolina and Ceblepyrina. 

 When it is considered that the study of affinities is but yet in its 

 infancy, and that the materials by which it is to be prosecuted 



