. On the natural history and classification of birds . h stands at the head of the tanagers. The recentdiscovery, in fact, of itsprototype, in the subgenusLanius itself, may be saidto demonstrate this view ofthe subject; for a shrike, dis-covered by Dr. Smith in SouthAfrica, is so completely likeCissopus {Pitylus picatus,), that, but for their bills,the two birds might be easilymistaken for the same species;both, in fact, are miniaturemagpies, and both representthat well-known bird in their own circles. (132.) We shall now give a rapid sketch of the viewswe at present entertain of the
. On the natural history and classification of birds . h stands at the head of the tanagers. The recentdiscovery, in fact, of itsprototype, in the subgenusLanius itself, may be saidto demonstrate this view ofthe subject; for a shrike, dis-covered by Dr. Smith in SouthAfrica, is so completely likeCissopus {Pitylus picatus,), that, but for their bills,the two birds might be easilymistaken for the same species;both, in fact, are miniaturemagpies, and both representthat well-known bird in their own circles. (132.) We shall now give a rapid sketch of the viewswe at present entertain of the natural affinities ofthese birds, first briefly stating the doubts that stillhang over their correctness. These doubts, indeed, maybe said to hinge almost entirely upon our not havingbeen able to examine specimens of the Fringilla Zenaof authors,— a bird which, strange to say, seems not toexist in any of our public museums, and which we havein vain endeavoured to procure for our own. Thereare several peculiarities in this remarkable finch, whichi 3. 118 ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF BIRDS. lead us to suspect that it forms the type of one of theprincipal divisions among the tanagers, or that itconnects our genus Aglaia with Pipillo. On the firstsupposition, F. Zena would constitute the passage fromthe true sparrows {Pyrgila) to the subgenus Tanagraproper; while, by the second, Pipillo would stand inter-mediate between Aglaia and Tanagra, and thus consti-tute the rasorial genus of the whole subfamily. Thislatter arrangement certainly appears to us the mostlikely to be the natural one, in which case, F. Zena;will be merely a subgenus, either of Pipillo, or ofAglaia; or, in other words, will connect the can we, by any disposition we have yet made,discover the circular series of the types of form in thegenera Tanagra and Phcenisoma, chiefly from ignoranceof the real affinities of Arremon: but for this,— andsupposing the tenuirostral types of these two genera tobe undiscov
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