1. BXURJiUS. 29 



tips of the feathers is a shade of velvety black ; crown of head dark 

 green ; nape and hind neck purplish red with tiny tips of sandy 

 huff; lores black; ear-coverts, cheeks, and throat steel-green ; sides 

 of neck and fore neck purplish red ; breast and abdomen dark steel- 

 green, with an oily green shade on the former ; sides of body and 

 flanks bluish purple, the latter more steel-green with sandy-buff 

 tips ; thighs and under tail-coverts blackish, edged with sandy 

 buff; under wing-coverts and axillaries dusky brown, edged with 

 pale sandj' buff ; quills below ashy, lighter along the edge of the 

 inner web. Total leugth 8 inches, culmeu 1, wing 5, tail 2'4, 

 tarsus 1*1. 



Adult female. With the colours distributed as in the male, but 

 not so brilliant, and with the sandy-bufi tips to the feathers much 

 more frequent, the lower surface being specially spotted. Total 

 length 8 inches, culmen t>t)5, wing 4*8, tail 2-3, tarsus l-l. 



The female seems never to lose altogether the spotted character 

 of the plumage. 



The adult birds in winter plumage present the colours of the 

 breeding-plumage for the most part, but are greener on the back 

 and have the whole of the feathers tipj)ed with sandy buff above, 

 and with white on the sides of the face and under surface of body. 

 The grey on the quills is much moi'e extensive and has a sub- 

 terminal black line before the sandy-buff edging. 



Young. Entirely brown above, with reddish-brown edges to the 

 wing-coverts, quills, and tail-feathers : sides of face, ear-coverts, and 

 cheeks also uniform brown ; throat dull white, the lower part streaked 

 with brown ; fore neck, chest, sides of body, and thighs uniform 

 brown, the breast and abdomen white streaked with dusky brown ; 

 under wing- and tail-coverts paler and more isabelline brown ; gape 

 yellow. 



The Common Starling of Western Europe is easily distinguished 

 by its colours — green head, green ear-coverts, green throat, green 

 scapulars and wing-covertSj and steel-blue or greenish-blue flanks. 

 The Siberian Starling, S. menzhieri, which visits India in the winter, 

 and which has always been called S. vulgaris, differs from the 

 English bird in having a reddish-purple head, ear-coverts, and 

 throat, and also in its violet-purple flanks. In the British Islands, 

 and doubtless in other parts of Europe, intermediate examples occur, 

 more frequently in winter, when a large immigration of foreign 

 Starlings into England takes place. These intermediate specimens 

 vary to any extent as regards the amount of purple on the head 

 and throat, but they are never, so far as my experience goes, true 

 S. menzhieri, as they have always green ear-coverts. It may well 

 be that a species exists in Eastern Europe which has a purple 

 head and throat and green ear-coverts, and that this bird migrates 

 westwards and southwards in winter, and that numbers of them 

 stop in England and mate with our indigenous birds, which have 

 in consequence been made to vary more or less in the direction of 

 a purple head and throat. The material at my command has not 

 been sufficient to determine the langc of our European biids ; 

 and I regret that after a study of Sturnus fid(/aris. extending 



