43 Bird-keeping. 



in a man-of-war, and learned to sound the roll-call 

 with great precision. 



Travellers in India and China mention the troops 

 of noisy Mina Birds consorting with the Indian Jack- 

 daws and Starlings in the groves near the villages, and 

 say that they are extremely useful as scavengers. A 

 bird of the same genus, the PARADISE GRAKLE 

 (Gracula tristis\ a native of the Philippine Islands, is 

 a voracious devourer of locusts and grasshoppers. 

 Buffon relates that these birds were introduced into 

 the Isle of Bourbon to destroy the locusts, which were 

 ravaging the island; but some of the colonists, imagin- 

 ing that they devoured the grain, caused them to be 

 proscribed by the council and exterminated. How- 

 ever, the locusts increased so rapidly, and did so much 

 damage in the island, that they speedily repented, and 

 the banished birds were brought back and protected by 

 the state, and the locusts were soon destroyed by them. 



All the true Grakles are natives of India or the 

 Indian islands. The birds known by this name in 

 America belong to another sub-family, the Quiscalinae, 

 or boat-tailed birds, their tails being of a most curious 

 shape, the sides being curved upwards. The Quiscalus 

 versicolor (PURPLE GRAKLE or CROW BLACKBIRD) is 

 readily tamed and taught to speak. It lives on worms, 

 grubs, and insects, but also makes great havoc in the 

 Indian corn or maize-fields. Another family of 

 American Starlings, the Troopials or Bobolinks, are 



