LAMPROTOKXrS SPLENDIDUS 65 



why we should doubt the accurac}' of the localities, Gaboon 

 and Angola, on specimens in the Paris Museum ; but I 

 believe it to be a local species. 



"This remarkably fine Glossy Starling," Mr. Keulemans 

 informs me, " is common in all the wooded parts of Prince's 

 Island, where I saw it in Hocks of six to twenty individuals, 

 especially in the morning, ever busy and restless, making a 

 deal of noise by their incessant call-notes and the beating 

 of their wings, which is remarkably loud. Can this be caused 

 by the peculiar form of the quills ? After mid-day the flocks 

 retire into the higher parts of the trees, usually squatting 

 and chuckling all the while, very much in the same manner 

 as our English Starling does of an afternoon on the tops of 

 our houses. In their movements they reminded me of our 

 Blackbird, and their song and call-note is exactly like that 

 of the Golden Oriole. Their food consists chiefly of berries 

 and bananas, but also includes large numbers of spiders, 

 caterpillars and even small snails, which they swallow, shell 

 and all. They breed in holes in trees, and the nestlings I 

 have seen were gre^'ish brown, and, according to the natives, 

 the eggs are white spotted with red and black towards the 

 thick end. The species is known to the natives as the 

 ' Torninko,' a corruption from the Portuguese 'Estorninko' 

 (Starling)." 



Lamprotornis splendidus (Plate 45). 



Turdis splendidus, Vieill. Enc. MHh. ii. p. 653 (1822) Malimbe. 

 Lampracolius glaucovirens, Elliot, Ann. and Mag. N. Hist. (4) xx. p. 169 



(1877) ; Sharpe, Cat. B. M. xiii. p. 172, pi. 7, fig. 2, head (1890, <? ) ; 



Shelley, B. Afr. I. No. 596 (1890, pt.) 

 Lamprocolius splendidus glaucovirens, Eeichen. Yog. Afr. ii. p. 69-3 



(190.3) ; Neum. .1. f. 0. 1905, p. 240 X E. A/r. 



(January, 1900, 5 



