54 STURNID.E. 



shot. They prove a calamity to the husbandman, as they 

 are as destructive as locusts, and not much less numerous." 



It inhabits Syria, Egypt, and Africa, passing occasionally 

 in summer to breed in the warmer countries north of the 

 Mediterranean. At Aleppo it is held sacred, because it 

 feeds on the locust. Specimens have been obtained several 

 times in the neighbourhood of Geneva ; and in the trans- 

 lation of M. Bechstein"'s work on Cage Birds, it is stated 

 that " a sportsman discovered in 1774, in the environs of 

 Meiningen in Suabia, a flight of eight or ten Rose Ouzels, 

 moving leisurely from south-west to north-east, and passing 

 from one cherry-tree to another. He fired on these birds, 

 only one fell, which was fortunately very slightly wounded, 

 so that it soon recovered. Being immediately carried to M. 

 Von Wachter, the rector of Frickenhausen, this clergyman 

 took the greatest care of it : he gave it a spacious cage ; and 

 found that barley meal, moistened with milk, was as whole- 

 some as agreeable to it. His kindness tamed it in a short 

 time so far that it would come and take from his hand the 

 insects which he offered it. It soon sang, also ; but its 

 warbling consisted at first of but a few harsh sounds, pretty 

 Avell connected, however ; and this became at length more 

 clear and smooth. Connoisseurs in the songs of birds dis- 

 cover in this song a mixture of many others : one of these 

 connoisseurs, who had not discovered the bird, but heard its 

 voice, thought he Avas listening to a concert of two Starlings, 

 two Goldfinches, and perhaps a Siskin ; and when he saw 

 that it was a single bird, he could not conceive how all this 

 music proceeded from the same throat. This bird was still 

 alive in 1802, and the delight of its possessor." 



A dealer in birds, residing in Oxford Street, had three 

 living specimens of the Rose-coloured Pastor for sale, in the 

 summer of 1837 or 1838. This bird flics in flocks like the 

 Starling, and in other habits and peculiarities also resembles 

 that species ; it feeds about and among flocks and herds, and 



