{ 257}This immense family, comprising all the birds usually known as "warblers," is, as here constituted, of almost universal distribution. 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 belonging to the Nearctic region, while two or three others whose position 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 Sylviidæ into seven sub-families, as follows:
1. Drymoecinæ (15 genera, 194 sp.), confined to the Old World and Australia, and especially abundant in the three Tropical regions. 2. Calamoherpinæ (11 genera, 75 sp.), has the same general distribution as the last, but is scarce in the Australian and abundant in the Palæarctic region; 3. Phylloscopinæ (11 genera, 139 sp.), has the same distribution as the entire family, but is most abundant in the Oriental and Palæarctic regions. 4. Sylviinæ (6 genera, 33 sp.), most abundant in the Palæarctic region, very scarce in the Australian and Oriental regions, absent from America. 5. Ruticillinæ (10 genera, 50 sp.); entirely absent from America and Australia; abounds in the Oriental and Palæarctic regions. 6. Saxicolinæ (12 genera, 126 sp.), absent from America (except the extreme north-west), abundant in the Oriental region and moderately so in the Palæarctic, Ethiopian, and Australian. 7. Accentorinæ (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. DRYMOECINÆ.--(736) Orthotomus (13 sp.), all the Oriental region; (737) _Prinia_ (11 sp.), all the Oriental region; (738 740 742 746) _Drymoeca_ (83 sp.), Ethiopian and Oriental regions, most abundant in the former; (743 to 745 and 749 to 752) _Cisticola_ (32 sp.), Ethiopian and Oriental regions, with South Europe, China { 258}and Australia; (741) _Suya_ (5 sp.), Nepal to South China and Formosa; (773) _Sphenæacus_ (7 sp.), Australia, New Zealand, and Chatham Island, with one species (?) in South Africa; (770 772) _Megalurus_ (4 sp.), Central India to Java and Timor; (774 775) _Poodytes_ (2 sp.), Australia; (766) _Amytis_ (3 sp.), Australia; (768) _Sphenura_ (4 sp.), Australia; (764) _Malurus_ (16 sp.), Australia and Tasmania; (762 763) _Chthonicola_ (3 sp.), Australia; (761) _Calamanthus_ (2 sp.), Australia and Tasmania; (759) _Camaroptera_ (5 sp.), Africa and Fernando Po; (753) _Apalis_ (1 sp.), South Africa.