THE PIED STARLING 201 



utilised by nesting Sturnopastors would include almost 

 every inanimate object which is both portable and 

 pliable ; feathers, rags, twigs, moss, grass, leaves, paper, 

 bits of string, rope and cotton, hay and portions of skin 

 cast off by snakes, are the materials most commonly 

 employed. The nest is not, as a rule, placed very high 

 up. Sometimes it is situated in quite a low tree. Once 

 when visiting the gaol at Gonda in the rains I observed 

 a pair of pied mynas nesting in a solitary tree which 

 grew in one of the courtyards inside the gaol walls. 

 Like most of its kind, the pied starling displays little 

 fear of man. The eggs of this species are a beautiful 

 pale blue. Blue is the hue of the eggs of all species of 

 myna. The fact that, notwithstanding its open nest, 

 the eggs of the pied myna do not differ in colour from 

 those of its brethren which nestle in holes, is one of the 

 facts that the field naturalist comes across daily which 

 demonstrate how hopelessly wrong is the Wallaceian 

 view of the meaning of the colours of birds' eggs. 



