202 OMNIVOR.E. 



perish. If the starlings can fly, they are exempt from many 

 of the casualties to which birds that winter doggedly in 

 their summer haunts are subject ; they whisk away to places 

 where there is plenty of food, while the lingering tribes perish 

 of want. 



When they are in the low districts, and in large collections, 

 a flock of starlings preparing to lodge themselves in the tufts 

 for the night, puts one something in mind of a dog preparing 

 to lie down in a place to which he is not accustomed. They 

 wheel round and round, first in the circumference of a circle, 

 but that circle narrows, and the whole mass is revolving round 

 a centre within itself, before it drops and disappears for the 

 night. 



Starlings not only associate with other birds, but imitate 

 their cries chattering with jackdaws, whistling with plovers, 

 and screaming with sea-fowl. Their double voice causes 

 them to be more frequently deprived of their liberty, their 

 articulation being plain, and their whistle easily modulated 

 into music.* 



OCCASIONAL VISITANTS, OF ANALOGOUS GENERA. 



There are at least five of these, of which specimens have 

 been seen in some part or other of Britain, and they may be 

 more frequent than has been ascertained ; but still they are 



* The starling does not belong to the crow family, or Corvidce, to 

 which the author applies the title of " Order Omnivorae." 



The genus Sturnus may be regarded as the type of a family termed 

 by ornithologists Sturnida, a family the members of which are uni- 

 versally distributed, America claiming a large proportion of them, and 

 those too of no ordinary beauty. 



With respect to the " Order Omnivorse," no zoologist will for a moment 

 hesitate to reject it. It was proposed by Temminck, and contains 

 species or genera which are widely separated from each other, not only 

 as to form, but habits also. 



The crows simply constitute a family under the title Corvidce. M. 



