ROSE-COLOURED STARLING. 25 
castle. The following day these holes were cleaned out, and nest-building 
began on the 5th. It was not until the 17th that it was ascertained for 
certain that eggs had been laid ; but by the 14th of July the young were 
seen migrating with their parents, and soon afterwards the birds had 
all disappeared. The nests were described as roughly composed of small 
sticks, little branches, straws, hay, grasses, and other dry herbs disposed 
in a shapeless mass, with a limited hollow space in the middle to contain 
the eggs, and irregularly lmed with herbaceous fibres, leaves, mosses, and 
feathers. ‘The males went out to feed in small parties, returning together, 
The Rose-coloured Starling arrives in India early in August, and appears 
in some districts in such numbers as to be injurious to the crops of white 
“ Jowaree,’ and before it leaves in spring it feeds on the fruit of the mul- 
berry. During the cold season it eats insects of various kinds, the seeds 
of grasses and plants, and any kind of fruit it can obtain. 
The eggs of this bird vary from five to seven in number, and are so 
pale a grey in colour as to be scarcely distinguishable from white; they 
are very fine-grained, smooth, and glossy, and vary in length from 1°15 to 
1:07 inch, and in breadth from ‘83 to ‘8 inch. 
The male Rose-coloured Starling is a very conspicuous bird, with the 
head, neck and breast, wings and wing-coverts, axillaries, tail, upper and 
under tail-coverts, and thighs glossy black, the head, neck, and breast 
with purple reflections, and the wings and tail with green reflections, the 
rest of the upper and underparts being a delicate rose or salmon-colour. 
Beak rose-coloured, dark at the base; legs, feet, and claws dull brown ; 
irides rich brown. The female is everywhere dullerin colour. This bird 
only moults once in the year, in autumn, when almost every feather is 
margined with pale brown, so that the whole bird looks brown, with black 
wings and tail. The breeding-plumage is assumed by casting the brown 
margins of the feathers. Young in first plumage are very similar to adults 
in autumn, but have paler wings and tail, and are without the concealed 
black or rose-coloured bases to the feathers ; they are very similar to the 
young of the Common Starling, but are much paler in colour. The adult 
plumage is assumed in the first September by a moult. 
Three species belonging to the subfamily Icterine have been known 
to visit this country. This subfamily is intermediate between the Sturninze 
and the Fringillinz, and is strictly confined to the American continent. 
Of the first of these, the Red-winged Starling or Red-winged Oriole 
( Ageleus pheniceus), nearly a dozen examples have occurred in the British 
Islands; but as it is a very common cage-bird, it is probable that most of 
them had escaped from confinement. This species appears to be found 
throughout North America as far north as the Great Slave Lake. In the 
south it is a resident, but in the north it is a migratory bird, and it is 
