16 ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF BIRDS. 
all the manners of a woodpecker, may not Vanga, 
Barrita, &c., by analogy of reasoning, be true crows, dis- 
guised under the economy, and much of the structure, — 
of shrikes? Again, does the Vange of New Holland 
and that of Madagascar belong to the same genus? or 
even to the same natural group? The only specimen of 
this latter bird, known to exist in collections, is in the 
Paris Museum, but in too injured a state to allow of 
this question being answered. On the other hand, 
we happen to know, from unquestionable testimony 
that the Vanga destructor of New Holland kills 
and eats small birds, in the same manner as the Eu- 
ropean species ; and that it is actually called a butcher- 
bird by the’colonists. Yet this, after all, seems to us 
only a relation of analogy, just as in the case of Mnio- 
tilta, which, although it climbs like a Certhia, is merely 
a representation of those scansorial birds, and truly 
belongs, by affinity, to the circle of the warblers. Since 
our last observations upon Vanga were published *, we 
have been fortunate in procuring two or three species, 
which so connect the New Holland Vange with Barrita, 
that we no longer hesitate to place them all in the 
corvine family (Corvide) ; where, also, we now arrange 
Platylophus, since it certainly has a greater resemblance 
to Vanga destructor than to any of the soft-backed 
shrikes, or Malaconoti. ‘This alteration does not, how- 
ever, interfere with any thing we have said regarding 
Platylophus being a rasorial type: as such it remains, 
but merely fills that station in another circle. Platy- 
lophus, in short, has all the outward aspect of a jay, com- 
bined with that of a shrike ; while its remarkable crest 
indicates to which of the primary types of nature we 
should refer it. 
* Northern Zoology, vol. ii. p. 124. 
