698 PASSERTNI—PATELLA 



Umberiza, Frmgilla, Loxia, Cindus(f) and Corvus — thus differing 

 somewhat from Johannes Midler's application of the cognate term 



PASSERINI {Ahhandl. K. Ahad. Berlin, Phys. Kl. 1847, p. 

 366), Avhich he regarded as equivalent to the Order Insessores 

 (as it was then called), separating its members into Passcrini 

 POLYMYODI (or OsciNES), Tracheophones and PiCARii, though 

 cautiously declaring these to be not so much the names of groups, 

 but as merely indicating different laryftgeat formations. 



PASTOR, Temminck's generic name in 1815 for a beautiful 

 l)ird, the Tardus roseus of Linnaeus, very commonly known in Eng- 

 lish as the Rose-coloured Pastor, one of the Sturnidx (Starling), 

 which is not an infrequent visitor to the British Islands. It is a 



bird of most irregular and erratic 

 habits — a vast horde suddenly arriv- 

 ing at some place to Avhich it may 

 have hitherto been a stranger, and 

 at once making a settlement there, 

 leaving it wholly deserted so soon 

 tastor. (After Swainson.) as the youug are reared. This 



happened in the summer of 1875 at Yillafranca, in the province of 

 Yerona, the castle of which was occupied in a single day by some 

 12,000 or 14,000 birds of this species, as has been graphical^ told 

 by Sig. de Betta {Atti del E. 1st. Veneto, ser. 5, vol. ii.) ; but similar 

 instances have been before recorded, — as in Bulgaria in 1867, near 

 Smyrna in 1856, and near Odessa in 1844, to mention only some of 

 Avhich particulars have been published,^ and a concise account of 

 them will be found in the Fourth Edition of Yarrell's British Birds 

 (ii. pp. 245-250). The Rose-coloured Starling hardlj^ ever occurs 

 in Africa, but is a Avell-known bird in India, over nearly the whole 

 of which it regularly appears, arid generally in the cold weather. 



PASTURE- BIRD, a name indiscriminately given in jDarts of 

 North America and the West Indies to any of the Stints and 

 smaller Sandpipers met with on their autumnal migration, and 

 then mostly resorting to the cattle-pastures. 



PATELLA, a sesamoid bone interposed in the tendon of the 

 extensor -cruris muscle, and connected with the upper end of the 

 TIBIA by the Patellar Ligament, which in old birds is often ossified. 

 The most remarkable variations of condition are shewn in Coiyiidnn, 



^ It is remarkable that on almost all of these occasions the locality pitched 

 upon has been, either at the time or soon after, ravaged by locusts, which the 

 birds greedily devour. Another fact worthy of attention is that they are often 

 observed to affect trees or shrubs bearing rose-coloured flowers, as Nerium 

 oleander and Rohinia viscosa, among the blossoms of which they themselves may 

 easily escape notice, for their plumage is rose-pink and black shot with blue. 



