134 



MR. BLYTII ON THE BRITISH WARBLERS. 



It would have been highly gratifying to me, if these fish had re- 

 mained at their stations, and allowed themselves to be taken with 

 the sea-devil, as I should then have had an opportunity of examining 

 them j but the moment the first harpoon was thrown, they let go 

 their hold and disappeared. 



I hoped, however, that we might perchance catch one of those 

 that served as sentinels to the other two monsters, which, by all the 

 noise we had made, had not been driven away. Different baits were 

 tried for them, but to no purpose j when the bait was thrown into 

 the water, they came and examined it, and immediately returned to 

 their posts. 



I do not at present recollect that any naturalist has spoken of 

 these white remoras. Yet other travellers besides me have seen 

 them. I shall cite on this head Dubadier, known in natural his- 

 tory for his rare and ample collections of the Crustacea of the Car- 

 ribbee Islands. In his last voyage this naturalist saw , in latitude 

 45° north, longitude 333°, a similar ray, which he supposed to be 

 about twenty-five or thirty feet in breadth, accompanied by its two 

 white pilots. He made a drawing of it, as I did of the rays which I 

 saw, and on comparing these drawings, the fish evidently appear to 

 be of the same species. 



REMARKS ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF BIRDS, PARTICULARLY 

 THE BRITISH WARBLERS, (Sylviana.) 



BY EDWARD BLYTII. 



None of our small British birds seem so little known to the gene- 

 rality of observers, as that numerous and interesting group usually 

 denominated " Warblers." Among no common birds has there ex- 

 isted such strange confusion in works on natural history ; a con- 

 fusion which may have originated partly in the resemblance which 

 some few of the species bear to each other, and partly perhaps in 

 the shy, inobtrusive, and retiring habits of the whole group ; but 

 which must nevertheless be mainly attributed to that culpable de- 

 ficiency of personal observation, that ignorance of living nature too 

 often discernible in the compilations of some who would be thought 

 naturalists. The persevering researches, however, of White, of 

 Montagu, and of many living field observers, have done much 

 towards elucidating the species, and have enabled us to recognize 



