STARLING LIKE MYXAHS. 



41 



web ; bill and feet bright waxy yellow ; base of lower 

 mandible and tomium bluish-slate ; irides pearl blue, 

 with bluish naked orbital ring. Female smaller and 

 with shorter wing. Hab., Andaman and Nicobar 

 Islands. 



I have not discovered any field-notes on this species, 

 but it is now a well-known show bird. Russ says that 

 the dealer G. Reitz. of Berlin, sent him three speci- 

 mens in 1891. and during the same year several 

 specimens reached the Berlin Zoological Gardens. He 

 overlooks the fact that the London Gardens purchased 

 a specimen in January, 1885. 



MALABAR MYNAH (Poliopsar malabaricus). 



The cock in breeding plumage is a soberly coloured 

 bird, its prevailing colour above being ash-grey, 

 suffused with rosy brown, with which colour the feathers 

 are edged ; the lower part of the back, rump, and iipper 



this Starling, which is also known by the name of the 

 " Grey-headed Mynah," appears to prefer country 

 which has been partly cleared, especially low but breezy 

 ridges, at elevations of from 2,500 to 4,000 ft., where 

 only a few trees have been left standing here and there. 

 It feeds about equally on trees and on the ground ; 

 it is very fond of the fruit of the peepul tree. It 

 may be seen in flocks of from forty to fifty individuals. 

 Like other Starlings, this bird nests in natural holes in. 

 dead or living trees ; but if the hole is not large 

 enough for its purpose it widens it. It chooses, in 

 preference to others, a hole difficult of access, at a 

 height of from 20 ft. to 50 ft. from the ground, and 

 in the bottom of the hole constructs a rough, loose 

 pad of fine twigs, mingled with long strips of bark, 

 straw, grass-stems or roots, or leaves only. The central 

 depression is only about 5 in. deep, and in this three 

 to four pale blue or delicate sea-green eggs are- 



ANDAMAN STARLING. 



tail-coverts slightly more ashy than the remainder of 

 the back ; the wing-coverts blackish, ashy externally ; 

 the bastard wing, primary-coverts, and quills black, 

 broadly tipped with ashy and edged externally with 

 purplish black ; the secondaries are also tipped _with 

 ash colour, the inner ones being entirely of that colour ; 

 central tail feathers ashy-blackish, edged with ashy 

 and tipped with chestnut, the coloured tip widening 

 towards the outermost feathers ; head and neck rufous- 

 brown, the feathers with ashy centres ; lores and sides 

 of face rufous-brown ; ear-coverts dingy ash-coloured ; 

 cheeks, chin, and throat pale ash-coloured, with reddish 

 edges to the feathers ; front of neck reddish-brown, 

 streaked with ash colour, the remainder of the under 

 surface deep cinnamon ; thighs ashy ; under tail-coverts 

 cinnamon, the longer ones white ; under wing-coverts 

 and axillaries ashy, with a faint reddish tinge, those 

 towards the base of the primaries whitish ; quills below 

 dusky brown, with pale inner edge ; bill blue at the 

 base, green in the centre, and yellow at the tip ; legs 

 brownish olive ; iris of eye greyish white. The hen 

 is paler than the cock, its legs are dusky yellow, and 

 its iris is white; otherwise it is very similar. Hab., 

 India, Burma, and Cochin-China. 



In its native country, according to A. O. Hume, 



deposited. The time of nidification is from May to- 

 June. Herr Wiener successfully reared this species in. 

 confinement, a cigar nest-box being selected. He says : 

 " I followed the plan of never giving much food at 

 a time and making the birds work for it. Their food- 

 dish (containing egg, breadcrumbs, German paste, and' 

 ants' eggs) I partly covered with a thin layer of garden 

 mould, and thus taught them to dig out the richei- 

 bits. One hour I gave them a few mealworms ; another 

 some spiders, or little morsels of raw beef, or a hand- 

 ful of live ants, mould, and larvae and so on, until 

 the young birds were able to take care of themselves." 

 This is by far the most lively Starling that I have kept, 

 and, though incessantly on the move, was always in 

 perfect plumage ; but eventually I exchanged it for 

 something which I was more interested in at the time. 

 Mr. Farrar bred the species later, and had the bad taste 

 to call in question Mr. Wiener's statement respecting 

 the food supplied to his birds, and as good as said that 

 he did not believe it ; he concluded this exceedingly 

 courteous article by sneering at a remark of mine 

 respecting a bird exhibited at the Palace, and asking 

 whether I had ever kept one. It is quite possible that 

 my male may have been one of those which subse- 

 quently came into Mr. Farrar's possession. At the time- 



