Birds of the Buffalo Basin 43 



the birds were not to be further molested. Rickard is no doubt 

 referring to the same mvasion in his remarks on the Wattled 

 Starling. " An immense flock arrived at Elast London ; in a few 

 days they broke up into smaller flocks and associated with 

 Am\)drus mono. They were feeding on the locusts which they 

 took on the wing like a flycatcher, flying up a short distance, and 

 returning to the same resting-place. The ground beneath the bushes 

 on which they rested was strewn with the legs and wings of the 

 insects." Curiously enough, in the great locust invasion of 1909, 

 nothing whatever of locust-birds dealing with the invaders was 

 seen in our area; nests of Wattled Starlings, however, were re- 

 ported from Emgwali in the summer of 1909-10. In the river- 

 basins of the Buffalo and the Keiskama, Wattled Starlings may 

 generally be found in small numbers about the mimosa tracts, 

 where I have noted them in April, May, August, September and 

 November. Our local individuals have nowadays few opportuni- 

 ties of gorging on locusts, and have to be content with scouring 

 the country in search of other prey. They associate with Pied 

 Starlings and Red-winged Starlings and may occasionally join 

 these rogues in visiting a fruit-garden, but, as a rule, they keep far 

 enough away from orchards and are content to prey on the abund- 

 ance of insect-life on the veld. Like other starlings, they are fond 

 of associating with sheep and cattle, and I have watched one 

 settle dovm deliberately to feed in the shadow of a cow. 



Pied Starling— 5preo bicolor (Gm.) : This bird is un- 

 accountably scarce in our area. On 27th August, 1912, I met 

 with a number among the mimosa between Pirie and Kingwilliams- 

 towTi, and again on 20th June, 1915, I came on five to the east 

 of Pirie. These are my only personal records, and no others 

 are known to me, Rickard plainly stated that the bird was not 

 found at East London in his day, and neither Center nor Wood 

 record it at the present day. Trevelyan also is silent regarding 

 its occurrence at Kingwilliamstown. Yet the bird is common 

 enough just beyond our limits. Mr. Wood informed me that 

 there was a good colony on the banks of the Kubusie, at Water- 

 ford, but that in 1 905 nearly the whole colony perished in their 

 roosting-holes during a disastrous flood. At Somerville, Tsolo, 

 the Pied Starling is resident but erratic in its movements. For 



