100 ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF BIRDS. 
which are well known to follow the tracks of cattle, in 
order to search after 
such insects as are 
disturbed by their 
grazing. It is singu- 
lar to witness the as- 
sociation of crows and 
starlings in the same 
field, — nearly in the 
flock, — and ' almost 
adopting the same ha- 
bits ; each bird representing the other in its own particular 
family : in both, the lengthened and conic form of the bill 
is well adapted for searchhig after insects in the ground ; 
both walk in the same stately manner, and both seem so 
attached to cattle and sheep as to rest upon their backs. 
In the genus Pastor (^fig- 154. o,6), the bill (as in lAim- 
protoniis) is compressed : but in the European starlings, 
forming thegenus Stumus, it is more acute and depressed 
(c, d) ; the notch also is so faint as to be nearly obsolete. 
Some of the foreign pastors, leading to Gracula Cuv., 
are furnished with naked wattles, and seem providen- 
tially created to destroy those devastating flights of locusts 
which so often appear on the plains of Southern Africa. 
(117.) 'I’he Agelainai, or maize-birds, succeed to 
the starlings; the two subfamilies, in short, are so 
completely united by the Sturnella collaris, or coUared 
starling of North America, that, but for the discovery 
of the genus Oxystomns, it would be difficult to say 
in which group Sturnella should be placed. IVe now 
enter upon a group so truly natural, that the confused 
notions of certain writers regarding their distinctions ex- 
cites no little surprise. Ignorance of the natural habits 
c.f these birds, or a disregard of that peculiarity of struc- 
ture which would, in some respects, point out their habits, 
will always produce a generahsing but a very artificial 
arrangement of groups nearly connected, but essentially 
different. Such, at least, is the only way in which we 
can account for these birds being considered as part of 
