MR. BLYTH ON THE BRITISH WARBLERS. 



135 



with tolerable precision the majority in their native haunts ; though 

 yet, to judge from their usual arrangement in our systems, it would 

 still appear that the generic resemblances of some had been traced 

 in their stuffed skins, rather than from a careful observation of their 

 manners and habits when alive. 



In attempting to arrange the dried skins of foreign birds, of the 

 habits and economy of which we are nearly, or perhaps wholly igno- 

 rant, there is, of course, no alternative but to class them according to 

 the forms and proportions of their several members ; and these 

 characters, to a practised naturalist, will generally afford tolerable 

 criteria ■ still, the inferences thus drawn are often but vague and 

 uncertain, and it is from practical observation alone of their manners 

 and habits when living, that a correct system of classification can be 

 obtained. 



The British Warblers are all, with one or two exceptions, very 

 common ; indeed, I have observed them all to be much more abun- 

 dant than what I have read of them would lead me to suppose ; they 

 inhabit every hedge, and abound in every garden 5 they swarm in 

 every thicket, and enliven every bush with their melody : yet, how- 

 ever, to most persons risiding in the country, they are but little 

 known ; strange as it may sound, the very existence of some of 

 them is doubted by professed naturalists. 



The various birds called " Warblers," together with a host of dis- 

 similar and widely differing groups, were all associated by Linnseus 

 in one huge and comprehensive genus, Motacilla. Subsequent 

 writers have restricted that term to the group to which the common 

 field wagtail belongs, and the different warblers were arranged by 

 Latham in his extensive genus Sylvia; that again is now divided 

 into several smaller groups, and the majority of our British warblers 

 are at present (by most writers) arranged in aa undecided manner, 

 partly in the genus Curruca of Brisson, and partly in the Latham's 

 Sylvia, &c. 



It might, perhaps, be unnecessary now to discuss the comparative 

 merits of large or of small genera 5 nor need I here dilate on the 

 propriety of arranging those only together in one genus, which na- 

 turally assimilate, not only in some vague, trivial, and often fancied 

 resemblance in the form of the bill, but which possess also a gene- 

 ral similarity of structure, habits, and mode of life. 



Every distinct and natural group, which the mind can clearly and 

 definitively recognise, in idea, should (I consider) be formed into a 

 genus, and distinguished by a generic appellation, alluding to some 



