﻿31 6 ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF BIRDS. 



however, to several of the birds that have been placed 

 in this particular group, we apprehend very few really 

 belong to it. We have seen the errors that have re- 

 sulted from classing these birds from mere descriptions 

 and figures, and even from describing them before their 

 distinguishing characters have been rightly understood ; 

 and we shall not, therefore, give a fictitious degree of 

 perfection to our arrangement of this family by attempt- 

 ing to refer such little-known species to those groups 

 to which, as we conjecture, they more naturally belong. 

 There is one, however, the Buteo borealis, whose affinity 

 to the subgenus Aster has already been intimated *, and 

 w T hich we now venture to remove from the buzzards. 

 There is, it is true, a very strong general similarity 

 between this bird and the Buteo vulgaris {fig, 109.)j 



but the bill of borealis {fig. 1 10. b) ishigher, more abruptly 

 curved, and altogether partakes of the general structure 

 of the accipitrine circle, while the well defined lobe in the 

 middle of the upper mandible brings it, in our opinion, 

 close to the Aster palumbarius. If such a bird, in short, 

 is admitted into the genus Buteo, we really are totally at 

 a loss in what manner to define either that group or 

 Aster. B, borealis, moreover, like the majority of the 

 asturine group, has the hinder toe and claw of nearly 

 equal length with the inner ; whereas the most universal 

 character of the buzzards is to have the hinder toe de- 

 cidedly the shortest. That most beautiful species, the 



* Northern Zoology, ii. 9. 



