62 ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF BIRDS. 
bill is their only prominent distinction, From then di- | 
versity of form among the birds composing the typical — 
genus Sylvia, we suspect that the subgenera may event- _ 
ually be detected: thus, the wood and willow warblers 
exhibit several points of variation from the gold crests. 
By the subgenus Acanthiza, comprising such birds of — 
New Holland as there represent the typical European — 
warblets, we are conducted to the soft-tailed division, or 
the genus Malurus Vieil. To this group, we suspect, 
belongs the Dartford warbler, the only British, or indeed 
European, example. The texture of its feathers is very 
open, and the tail is more particularly long and soft. Se- 
veral species inhabit Africa; but the most beautiful 
come from Australia, where we have the superb warbler, 
and several others, richly ornamented with vivid blue and 
velvet black plumage. To these succeed the wren-like 
warblers of Africa, forming the genus Drymoica, and of 
which Prinea may be a subordinate type or subgenus. 
These latter birds have all the activity and familiarity of 
the true wrens ( T'roglodytes ), and so much resemble them 
in general appearance, in their short sweet song, and the 
throwing up of the tail, that it is not very surprising 
they should have been classed with the scansorial creepers. 
The fifth genus, or type, which should represent the Te- 
nuirostres and the Grailatores, has not been clearly made 
ut; although it may possibly be the genus Ortho- 
tomus Horsf., since this form has a most unquestionable 
affinity to Prinea, and in the depression and compression 
of its bill seems to approach the gnat-snappers (Culi- 
‘alate the type of Orthotomus is not, however, 
= the bird described as such, 
but the Dicea a longue bec of the 
Paris Museum (Orthotomus 
longirostres Sw.), the head of 
which (fig. 135.), of the natu- 
ral size, is here given from a 
drawing made from this specimen, the only one yet 
known. The union of the three aberrant genera, ~ 
namely, Drymoica, Orthotomus, and Culicivora, seems | 
