386 



BRITISH BIRDS. 



songsters of greater or less merit. Their nests are built either amongst 

 bushes or coarse vegetation^ are cup-shaped, and are usually slight struc- 

 tures of dry grass-stems, hairs, &c. Their eggs vary considerably in 

 number and colour, and will be treated of in detail under the respective 

 species. 



The genus Sylvia has been subdivided by various writers into no less than 

 eleven genera ; but I see no reason whatever to alter the arrangement I 

 made in the fifth volume of the British-Museum ' Catalogue of Birds.'' 

 The only group which might possibly be deserving of generic rank would 

 be that containing the Rufous Warbler and its near ally (if, indeed, the 

 latter be more than subspecifically distinct) the Grey-backed Warbler. 

 It does not seem worth while to make a separate genus to contain only 

 one, or at most two, birds, and for which a new generic name would have 

 to be invented, as that which has generally been applied to them was origi- 

 nally applied to the Nightingale. 



