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CHAP, xviii.] BIRDS. 257
This immense family, comprising all the birds usually known
as " warblers," is, as here constituted, of almost universal distri-
bution. Yet it is so numerous and preponderant over the whole
Eastern Hemisphere, that it may be well termed an Old-World
group ; only two undoubted genera with very few species belong-
ing to the Nearctic region, while two or three others whose posi-
tion is somewhat doubtful, are found in California and the
Neotropical region.
Canon Tristram, who has paid great attention to this difficult
group, has kindly communicated to me a MSS. arrangement of
the genera and species, which, with a very few additions and
alterations, I implicitly follow. He divides the Sylviidse into
seven sub-families, as follows :
1. Drymoecinse (15 genera 194 sp.), confined to the Old World
and Australia, and especially abundant in the three Tropical
regions. 2. Calamoherpinse (11 genera, 75 sp.), has the same
general distribution as the last, but is scarce in the Australian and
abundant in the Palsearctic region ; 3. Phylloscopinse (11 genera,
139 sp.), has the same distribution as the entire family, but is
most abundant in the Oriental and Palsearctic regions. 4. Syl-
viinse (6 genera, 33 sp.), most abundant in the Paleearctic region,
very scarce in the Australian and Oriental regions, absent from
America. 5. Kuticillinse (10 genera, 50 sp.); entirely absent from
America and Australia ; abounds in the Oriental and Palaearctic
regions. 6. Saxicolinae (12 genera, 126 sp.), absent from America
(except the extreme north-west), abundant in the Oriental region
and moderately so in the Palsearctic, Ethiopian, and Australian. 7.
Accentorinse (6 genera, 21 sp.), absent from the Ethiopian region
and South America, most abundant in Australia, one small genus
(Sialia), in North America.
The distribution of the several genera arranged under these
sub-families, is as follows
:
1. Drymgecin^.— (^36) Orthotomus (13 sp.), all the Oriental
region; (^^^) Frinia (11 sp.), all the Oriental region;
(^^s 740 742
'^^^) Drpnceca, (83 sp.), Ethiopian and Oriental regions, most
abundant in the former; (7*3 to 745 and 74910752) Cisticola (32 sp.),
Ethiopian and Oriental regions, with South Europe, China