52 STURNID.E. 



The genus Pastor was proposed by M. Teniminck for 

 several birds wliicli exhibit various relations to the Starlings 

 and the Crows ; only one of these, the Rose-coloured Pastor, 

 is an accidental visiter to this country; and though several 

 years sometimes intervene from one occurrence to another, 

 the beauty of the bird attracts particular notice, and its cap- 

 ture has probably been more regularly recorded than that of 

 many other birds that are equally rare. 



It may not be altogether useless to include here a brief 

 enumeration of those instances that have come to my know- 

 ledge, some from the records of the observers, and others from 

 private communications. The bird was first noticed as Bri- 

 tish by Edwards, who appears to have taken his represent- 

 ation from a specimen killed at Norwood. Mr. Gould, in his 

 Birds of Europe, mentions one that was shot by his friend 

 John Newman at Iver Court ; and Shaw records one that was 

 killed in Oxfordshire. It has been met with in Sussex ; and 

 during the summer of 1838, a pair were seen near Christ- 

 church, in Hampshire, and shot at : the male only was ob- 

 tained ; the female, though believed to be wounded, got 

 away : this communication was sent to me by the Hon. Mr. 

 Harris, son of the Earl of Malmesbury. A pair, now in the 

 British Museum, were killed in Devonshire ; and two or 

 three other instances of the occurrence of this species in the 

 same county are recorded by Dr. Edward Moore, in his pub- 

 lished catalogue of the Birds of Devonshii-e, in the Magazine 

 of Natural History for 1837. This bird has been shot at 

 Helston in Cornwall, and also on the Scilly Islands, the 

 latter specimen is now in the collection of E. H. Rodd, Esq. 

 of Penzance. Mr. L. LI. Dillwyn has in his possession a 

 specimen shot in July 1836, while eating cherries in a nur- 

 sery-garden, near Swansea. Mr. Eyton has recorded one 

 instance that came to his knowledge about four years ago at 

 Holyhead ; and it has also been killed twice in Lancashire. 

 Mr. Thompson sends me word that it has, in a few instances. 



