97 



43. Carpodacus erythrinus, Palias. Native name, Tuti. 

 This comes from the hills in the spring, and feeds on the mul- 



berry. It is caught by the natives in nets, before which two or three 

 decoys are tied. 



44. Sturnia PAGODARUM, Gmelin. Native name, Pažiya Pawi. 

 A very common bird. Elegant in shape and colour, Sings 



svreetly and is often caged. It is docile and hardy, and will imitate 

 any other bird placed near it. It talks likę a Munia, but with a 

 shriller note. I observed it on May 31st building its nešt in the hole 

 of a tree close to a bridge. 



45. Sturnus vtjlgaris, Linn. Native name, Telia or Nakhshi 

 Telia. 



Generally appears in great flocks in the neighbourhood of Muttra 

 in the cold weather. 



The name Telia given to this bird and the Pastor roseus is most 

 likely derived from Til (oil seed), which they are very fond of. 



46. Sturnopastor contra, Linn. Native name, Ahlaha. 



This builds a rather large nešt in a conspicuous situation on trees 

 of moderate height. It is somewhat shy. 



47. AcRiDOTHERES TRiSTis, Linn. Native name. Mainą. 



May be observed in the cold weather crowding together on the 

 Babul trees. They have several notes : one is praikh, praikh, another 

 when flying is twee, twee. They may be seen of a moming feeding 

 in the open fields upon white-ants. It is frequently caged and 

 taught to talk, -vvhieh it does tolerably well. 



48. CoRvus SPLENDENS, Vicill. 



The sagacity and vigilance of this predatory bird is too well known 

 to require much in illustration of its habits ; but I have too often 

 myself been amused by vritnessing the tricks, to think some short 

 account of the manner in vvhieh this exceedingly cunning bird is 

 caught by the natives, would not prove uninteresting to the reader of 

 these notes. To any one conversant with the customs of this country 

 (India) I need not say that Crows, as well as several other kinds of 

 birds, are in great reąuest at large cities for " Sudga " or " Ootarus " 

 (ransoms) for the siek. Hence the necessity with bird-catchers of 

 having a constant and well-regulated supply on hand, and as a Crow 

 can seldom be tricked twice in the šame manner, the bird-catchers 

 have recourse to various methods of entrapping him. One of them 

 is this : — Feeding Crows on certain occasions forms part of areligious 

 ceremony with the Hindoos, and this share of the business is gene- 

 rally taken up by the women, with whom, accordingly, Crows be- 

 come very familiar, nay, sometimes so bold as to take the food from 

 their hands. Taking advantage of this familiarity with the women 

 of the country, I have freąuently seen a bird-catcher attire himself 

 No. CCCXXXIII. — Proceedings of the Zoological Society. 



