132 Notice of Audiibon's Birds of America. 



We shall not, therefore, repeat those objections. We will only re- 

 mark that we see nothing in the present volume to induce us to 

 change our opinion ; nothing to make good to us the loss of the 

 usual division into orders ; nothing to reconcile us to the countless 

 subdivisions into genera on grounds that, to our eyes, seem mere 

 specific differences. If any genus would justify this subdivis- 

 ion, it is the old and immensely large one of Sylvia. But 

 it appears to us to be even far better to retain the old genus 

 in this case, large as it is, in point of numbers, than to subdi- 

 vide it into genera with so little perceptible variation one from 

 another, as exist in the generic characters of Myiodioctes, Syl- 

 vicola, Trichas, Helinaia, Mniotilta, &c. &c. ; and certainly, it 

 is far better than to create such specific genera as the last. We 

 have, however, only our regret to express. We intend to con- 

 vey no censure for the adoption of this perplexing system, hav- 

 ing already explained why it was, to some extent, hardly a 

 matter of choice with the author. Of the seventy species de- 

 scribed in the second volume, no less than twenty six are not to 

 be found in the work of Wilson, and of these, seventeen are to 

 be found in no other works on American ornithology than those 

 of Mr. Audubon. 



Besides these important discoveries of new species, the work 

 embodies a large number of interesting, important and novel facts 

 with regard to old species. In some instances where differences 

 arising from age and sex have been the means of deceiving natu- 

 ralists, and leading them to divide one species into two or more, 

 these mistakes have been detected and pointed out in the present 

 work. We will mention a few of the more important. 



The bird described as a new species by Audubon, in the first 

 volume of Ornithological Biography, as Muscicapa Selbii, is the 

 young of the hooded warbler, Sylvia cuculata of Wilson, and 

 S. mitrata of Bonaparte. 



The Sylvia Vigorsii of the same has been ascertained to be not 

 a new species, but the young of the pine-creeping warbler, Syl- 

 via piniis of authors. 



Th<3 Sylvia autumnalis of Wilson, Bonaparte, Nuttall, Audu- 

 bon and all others, is pronounced to be the young of the hemlock 

 warbler, Sylvia parus. We must confess we are somewhat stag- 

 gered at this annunciation, and although we doubt not the writer 

 believes he had good grounds for his decision in the case, we 



