46 
ON THE CLASSIFICATION OP BIRDS. 
Tenuirostral race forming the genus Ducnis of M. 
Cuvier, but previously named Nectarina by Illiger. 
The subgenus Sylvicola is the second or typical divi- 
sion of the whole group. These are the true tit- 
warblers of America, so closely resembhng the worm- 
eaters, that many writers have jdaced both in the same 
genus ; they may, however, readily be detected by a 
slightly arched bill, notched near the end of the upper 
mandible. The slender structure of their feet, the 
pointed form of their wings, and the scattered, weak 
bristles of the mouth, suggest the idea that the mode 
of catching their prey must not be unhke that adopted 
by the true flycatchers, and such, accordingly, turns 
out to be the fact ; they are, in short, lively, active, 
gaily coloured little birds, continually hunting after 
sedentary insects, and pursuing such as fly from bough 
to bough ; their habits thus forming a singular union of 
those of the wood- warbler, the tits, and the flycatchers : 
so close, indeed, is this analogy, that Meyer has con- 
founded them with the first, Linmeus and Buffbn with 
the second, and even Wilson considers some as belong- 
ing to the third of these families. Nor was the great 
American ornithologist very far from the truth, since 
they actually pass into a subgenus, which certainly 
would stand in the old Linnaian group of Muscicapa. 
(50.) In Dumecola, the third subgenus, we conse- 
quently find tile bill no longer slender and compressed, 
as in Sylvicola^ but decidetQy more flattened ; while the 
slender scattered hairs at the base become more rigid, 
lengthened, and directed forward in the manner of the 
true flycatchers. This subgenus is peculiar to tropical 
America ; it is composed of those very small birds 
which seem to be half warblers and half flycatchers, 
having the feet more lengthened, the wings more pointed, 
the bill narrower and less depressed, and the sides more 
rounded, than the small tyrants {Tyrannula), already 
noticed. The Dumecola rujicauda, formerly cited as an 
example, is not, perhaps, a typical one, but rather the AfM«- 
cocapa Diops-oi Temminck, which we have hitherto been 
