Its total length is about six inches, the minor proportions 
may be correctly ascertained by the scale on the plate. 
If the genus Ploceus of Baron Cuvier be restricted to the 
old world, it becomes one of the most natural groups in 
Ornithology. Yet, like all others of an extensive nature, 
it exhibits several modifications of structure, which the 
present state of science renders it necessary to define. 
Whether such definitions are to be termed generic, sub- 
generic, or sectional, must, in the first instance, depend on 
mere opinion. Itis enough if these lesser groups are defined. 
To ascertain their relative value is the next step: this is 
the second, and by far the most difficult process, in the 
study of real affinities ; for not only that particular group 
which claims our attention, but every other related to it in 
a higher division, must be patiently analyzed. Hence it 
frequently results that groups assume a very different 
apparent station to what they did in the first instance. 
Are we therefore to refrain from characterizing or naming 
them, because their relative value cannot, in the first in- 
stance, be ascertained? We think not. That genera have 
been unnecessarily multiplied, no one can doubt, who has 
looked beyond such circumscribed limits. And if forms 
of transision, (generally comprising one or two species 
alone,) are to be so ranked, we must immediately treble or 
quadruple the present number of ornithological genera. 
The truth is, that many groups, which in our first process of 
combination, we are obliged to distinguish, or perhaps name, 
will, in the second, be united to others. So that it appears 
highly probable that the number of genera, in ornithology, 
ultimately retained, will be fewer perhaps than at present. 
Weare, in short, but in the infancy of this knowledge, and 
our genera, for the most part, must be looked upon as 
temporary landmarks, to denote the ground gone over, and 
to be fixed or removed as our views become more extended, 
by a wider analysis of qualities and relations. 
Total length 64 inches, bill ~5, wings 33%, tarsi 5%, 
middle claw 1, tail 24, beyond the wings 1}. 
