14 Correspondence


CORRESPONDENCE


CHESTNUT-WINGED STARLINGS

Sirs, — With reference to your footnote on my letter in the December

Magazine with regard to my Chestnut- winged Amydrus, may I point

out that in Gould's Birds of Asia, vol. v, there is a coloured plate of

A. t fist rami exactly resembling my pair of Amydrus from Africa. I

cannot find Hagiopsar tristrami in Gould's works. He names it Amydrus

tristrami, with no synonym, and wrote : " There cannot be the slightest

doubt as to Amydrus Irish-ami being a good species. It is nearly allied

to A.fulvipennis of South and South- Western Africa. The size of both

species is the same."


That my birds may be A. morio I do not dispute, but judging by

Gould's plate they appear as identical with A. tristrami.


These birds seem to be hardy, for although only lately imported

they arc t briving in an outdoor aviary, and even moulted in November,


Hubert D. Astley.


[Sharpe separated the Palestine species from the African birds

{Amydrus), calling it Hagiopsar, of which genus it is the only repre-

sentative. — Eds.]



