24: BRITISH BIRDS. 
buying up fleeces of sheep from the peasants. He told us that he had 
travelled all the country round, and could assure us that there was not a 
bird to be found of the kind we sought. He told us that last year the 
birds swarmed in thousands in the valley below, and had built nests like 
Blackbirds’ in the clefts of the rocks and on the stony ground on the steep 
hill-sides. That year (1872) he said that they had arrived in great numbers, 
but at the expiration of a week had suddenly disappeared. A very inter- 
esting account of the breeding of these birds in the same district sixteen 
years previously is to be found in the ‘Zoologist’ for 1857, p. 5668, 
translated from an article in ‘Naumannia’ by the Marquis O. Antinori. 
He and Mr. Gonzenbach did not discover the locality until the young had 
left the nests. The birds arrived during the last week of May, and fresh 
eggs must have been laid about the 10th of June; but by the end of that 
month the young had left the nest, and by the middle of July both 
old and young had left the locality. The breeding-place was a rocky 
mountain-side, and long before it was reached they noticed that every rock 
.and stone was covered with the white droppings of the birds. The nests 
were in thousands, some quite open and uncovered, others so concealed 
amongst the blocks of stone that it was necessary to turn the rocks over 
to find them. Some were more than a foot below the surface, and others 
beyond arm’s length. The nests were often so close together as to touch 
one another ; they were carelessly made of dry stalks and leaves, occa- 
sionally lined with fine grass. Many eggs were laid on the bare ground. 
The great number of birds naturally attracted many enemies; and the 
remains of birds were lying about in all directions which had fallen a prey 
to jackals, martens, wild cats, rats, &c. In these ravines the oleander is 
very common ; and a small flock of Rose-coloured Starlings often suddenly 
becomes invisible as it drops on one of these shrubs, the pink backs and 
breasts of the Starlmgs being scarcely distinguishable from the pink 
flowers of the oleander. During the breeding-season the females of the 
Rose-coloured Starling sit very close and are assiduously fed by the males ; 
and during the short time that the young are in the nest they are most 
carefully tended by both parents. They are said to take pleasure in killing 
locusts even when their appetites are satisfied. 
In the ‘ Zoologist’ for 1878, p. 16, is a most interesting account of the 
visit of these birds in 1875 to Villafranca, translated from the Italian of 
Edoardo de Betta. About four o’clock in the afternoon of the 8rd of 
June about a score Rose-coloured Starlings arrived at the castle, and 
were followed in about half an hour by a much larger flock of perhaps a 
hundred birds. ‘Towards evening some thousands arrived, and at dusk 
dispersed in flocks over the country. The next day the numbers increased 
to about fourteen thousand ; and they soon ejected the Common Starlings, 
Swallows, Sparrows, and Pigeons from the holes in the battlements of the 
