SWARTZIA SYLVIA. 



747 



the " Gambian Goose," and reasons will be found 

 stated there why those tropical birds, which have 

 been described by many writers as swans, have been 

 there arranged as a section of the geese. The Ca- 

 nada, or era vatted goose, has also been sometimes de- 

 scribed as a swan, but it has the characters of the 

 true goose much more completely than the one now 

 alluded to, and will of course be found in the article 

 alluded to. It does not, indeed, appear that there 

 are any true swans, except the white swans of the 

 north part of the eastern continent and the black 

 swans of Australia ; and it is not a little singular 

 that countries so wide apart, and differing so much 

 in all their other living productions, ate the only ones 

 that agree with each other in containing native swans. 

 SWARTZIA (Willdenow). Evergreen shrubs, 

 natives of the West Indies, and belonging to Legu- 

 minotta;. The species are stove plants, thrive in light 

 loam, and may be increased by cuttings rooted in 

 sand under a bell glass. 



SWEETIA (Do Candolle). A genus of South 

 American climbing shrubs,', bearing diadelphous 

 flowers, and belonging to the natural order Legit- 

 minoscc. There are three or four species which have 

 been known as Galcgas, Tcphrosias, or Glydnes ; but 

 renamed as above by De Candolle in honour of the 

 late 11. Sweet, F.L.S. 



SWEET POTATO, is the Convolvulus batatas 

 of Linnaeus, and the Ipomcca batatas of Poiret. 

 Its tubers are eatable, and much used in tropical 

 countries. 



SWEET SOP, is the Anona squamosaof Linnaeus, 

 a tropical fruit-tree long known, and frequently fruited 

 in our collections. 



SWERTIA (Linnseus). A genus of perennial 

 aquatics, and annual and biennial herbs, natives of 

 Europe, and belong to Gentianecc. The S. perennis 

 is called felwort in English botany. 



SWIETENIA (Linnaeus). A single but most 

 valuable timber-tree, a native of the West Indies ; the 

 flowers are decandrous, and the plants belong to 

 Meliacea:. This is the celebrated mahogany-tree of 

 commerce, of which so much use is made in the 

 fabrication of household furniture. The plant grows 

 well in the stove, and is propagated by cuttings. 

 There is an East Indian species called S.febrifuga 

 by Roxburgh, from its medical properties. 

 SWIFT SWALLOW. See HIRUNDO. 

 SWINE. See Sus. 



SYCAMORE, is the Acer pseudo-platanus of Lin- 

 naeus, a well-known timber-tree, long naturalised in 

 England, and much used in ornamental planting. 

 The timber is chiefly used in turnery. 



SYLVIA (Warblers, or rather' SYLVIAD^E, the 

 warbler family). A genus, family, or section, for it 

 has been differently viewed by different discribers, 

 of the order Passcres, the family Dentirostres, and 

 the fine billed division of that family in Cuvier's ar- 

 rangement. The whole of the slender-billed family, 

 as known in his time, were arranged by Linnaeus in 

 one great genus Motacilla, or " Wagtail ;" but as the 

 mere motion of the tail is not a characteristic from 

 which any useful conclusion can be drawn, it became 

 necessary, after the structure of birds entered into 

 the grounds of their arrangement, to make very con- 

 siderable alterations, and to subdivide the Linnaean 

 genera into many parts. 



In all the family of fine-bills, the bill is slender and 

 in the form of a little style or bodkin, with the tip 



sharp, and capable of entering very small crevices in 

 the bark of trees, or pecking out caterpillars from 

 ;heir folds or other dwellings in or among the leaves. 

 They hold, at least in so far as the form of the bill is 

 concerned, an intermediate place between the finches 

 as birds feeding in great part on seeds, and the 

 shrikes as the most ravenous and exclusively animal 

 Seders of the whole order Passeres. In those that 

 approach the finches in character, the bill is quite 

 straight, without any notch, and a little depressed at 

 the base ; while in those that approach the shrikes 

 the bill is a little compressed at the base, with the 

 upper mandible very slightly curved, and an obscure 

 notch toward the tip. It is not very easy to find a 

 general description which can apply to the whole of this 

 very numerous and diversified species of birds other 

 than that from which the family has been named byCu- 

 vier ; and in this we can discover the superiority of that 

 great comparative anatomist and physiologist, drawn 

 as it is from nature alone, without any theoretical 

 basis of human contrivance, over the systems of more 

 recent and fanciful, but incalculably shallower per- 

 sonages, who have not made their systems, as they 

 ought to have done, the mirror of nature ; but have 

 made nature the mirror of their systems, or at least 

 attempted to do it, which is much the same. They 

 take up the succession from the Orioles, and the 

 McEmira, or lyre-bird of Australia ; and after proceed- 

 ing regularly through the different genera, to the 

 pipits ; and passing over the Syndactylic and Fis- 

 sirostral birds, which from the peculiar characters of 

 their feet, their bills, or both, cannot be made to come 

 into the regular series, they merge in the larks, with 

 which the pipits have so many points of resemblance 

 that they were once considered as larks. They are 

 thus a regular section of the great succession of birds 

 which may be considered as having the feet with 

 three toes before and one behind, and not in any way 

 decidedly adapted to any one kind of action with 

 those organs. 



As there is no established English name for this 

 extensive family of birds, and no scientific one which 

 is expressive enough, we shall give a short catalogue 

 of the genera in this article, referring to such as are 

 more minutely described in other parts of this work, 

 wherever such reference appears to be necessary. 

 There are eight principal genera in the fine-billed 

 family, and, as one of them admits of subdivision into 

 two sections, there will be nine in all for our con- 

 sideration, and we shall take them in the order in 

 which they are given by Cuvier. 



1. SAXICOLA (Chat). These are the birds of the 

 family which have most of the character of the 

 straight-billed shrikes. An account of them will be 

 found in the article SAXICOLA. 



2. SYLVIA. This genus has no appropriate English 

 name, we might perhaps call them the redbreast 

 genus, as our little familiar favourite, the common 

 redbreast, is the typical bird ; but then all the others 

 have not red breasts, though they agree with the red- 

 breast in characters which are more important. The 

 birds of this genus have the bill a little more straight 

 at the base than the chats, indicating that they are 

 not so exclusively insectivorous in their feeding, and 

 some of them, at least, are stationary even in coun- 

 tries far to the north ; whereas the chats are migra- 

 tory, and depart when the season of insects is over. 

 Their food, in the warm season, consists of insects 

 and worms, but in the winter they subsist in great 



