88 MR. J. GOULD ON A NEW GENUS IN THE FAMILY OF CORVID<. 
disposition ; for, unlike the common Magpie, which remains stationary, seldom travelling 
from its accustomed haunts, it has been observed to be perpetually flitting from branch 
to branch, and from tree to tree, instigated no doubt by the desire of procuring food, 
and hence travelling through a circuit of considerable extent. These wandering habits 
we may reasonably consider, from their similarity of form, to belong to the other 
species also, all of which are natives of eastern Asia. 
The nearest affinity of this Eastern group appears to be that which it bears to the 
genus Crypsirhina! of M. Vieillot, with which it accords in the essential character of 
the short and weakened tarsi. In the characters of the bill, however, it so materially 
differs, as to render the line of demarkation between the two groups clear and 
natural, and thus to authorize the separation of them. This member in Dendrocitia is 
stronger and less regularly arched than in Crypsirhina, and it is entirely devoid of those 
velvet-like appendages that cover the nostrils in the latter genus. In this respect it 
accords more closely with Pica, as well as in the outline of the bill towards the extre- 
mity ; still near the base of this member a gradual approach to the form as it exists in 
Crypsirhina shows itself by a lateral swelling and by a considerable development in 
breadth. Dendrocitta thus stands intermediate between Pica and Crypsirhina, and rests 
its claim to the rank of a separate genus on the prominence of the station it holds in 
nature, marking at once the distinction as well as the union between these two im- 
portant groups. 
The species of the genus Pica afford many subordinate modifications of characters 
among themselves, which are for the most part accordant with their geographical distri- 
bution. Those which approach most nearly to Dendrocitta, chiefly by the corresponding 
characters of the bill, appear to be the Eastern species ; for instance, Pica erythrorhyncha, 
&c. These, again, seem to have a near alliance to the American group whose chief habitat 
may be considered to centre in Mexico, of which Pica gubernatrix (Garrule commandeur, 
Temm., Pl. Col. 436.) and Pica Colliei, Vig. (Zool. Journ. vol. iv. pl. 12.) may be 
given as examples. The European Pie, the type of the group, appears to succeed to 
these: and from thence a South American tribe, exemplified in the Pie Ging of 
M. Temminck (Pl. Col. 169.), and Pie Acahé of the same author (PI. Col. 58.), par- 
taking in a great degree of the characters of both Pies and Jays, leads from the present 
group to the conterminous one of Garrulus. 
1 This is the Phrenothrix of Dr. Horsfield, well illustrated and compared with Pica in his ‘ Zoological Re- 
searches’. 
