Letters, Announcements, 8^c. 577 



the Locust- bird at Bulkuyunjuk, a village near Angora. It 

 was a most curious and interesting sight ; the birds had arrived 

 four days previously and literally taken possession of the vil- 

 lage, the houses and garden-walls of which are built of loose 

 stones. The birds were running in and out of the loose stones, 

 building their nests, and the walls of the mosque^ houses, and 

 gardens were full of them ; numbers, too, were taking a bath 

 in the spring and stream or sunning themselves after it ; 

 they were very tame, and seemed to be on excellent terms 

 with the people, who were only too glad to have them, as the 

 country round was covered with locusts. The noise was 

 almost greater than at the quarries of Ichje Kara-hissar. 



The quickness with Avhich the Russet Starling seizes the 

 locusts, both on the ground and in the air, is very striking, 

 and I know of few prettier sights than that of a flock of 

 Locust-birds attacking an army of locusts on the wing ; the 

 birds dash through the air with almost inconceivable rapidity, 

 seeming to the natives as if they were possessed by some 

 divine fury, and strike the locusts as they pass on the nape 

 of the neck, sometimes almost severing the head from the 

 body. In the younger stages of the locusts the birds feed 

 upon them; but when the locusts reach the size of a large 

 grasshopper and afterwards the flying stage, the Starlings 

 appear to kill them for mere amusement or in obedience to 

 some unknown instinct. The Russet Starling is a very vo- 

 racious and almost omnivorous biixl, and it is almost as 

 much dreaded for the damage which it does to the fruit as 

 welcomed for its enmity to the locust; I had a good ex- 

 ample of this on one occasion when I found flocks of young 

 birds stripping the fruit-.trees between Tocat and Amasia. I 

 have never seen the Locust-bird in winter, and believe it is 

 migratory in Asia Minor ; the natives always told me that 

 the birds appeared suddenly in dense flocks, and that they 

 were rarely known to remain more than three consecutive 

 summers in the same place. I am unable to explain why 

 the birds were so much later in arriving at Bulkuyunjuk, as 

 the altitude and climate are much the same as at the other 

 two breeding-places. 



C. W. Wilson, R.E., F.R.S. 



