STARLING-LIKE MYNAHS. 



43 



busy seeking for food, it sits contentedly upon lofty 

 trees, and thus one sometimes sees it in the morning, 

 in numbers, on the palms. During the midday heat, 

 however, it frequently conceals itself in the dense 

 .foliage of the tree-top. In the construction of its nest 

 it deviates greatly from the allied birds. It is no true 

 breeder in holes, but, according to my observations, 

 Jikes best to place its nest in the interstices of the 

 frond-stalks of the palms. I myself have mostly found 

 it upon pinary palms (Areca catechu, L.). As a rule, it 

 .is of considerable bulk, and, owing to its position 

 between two gradually diverging palm-frond stalks, it 

 has an elongated appearance, becoming narrower behind. 

 One might liken it to a cone lying obliquely, at the 

 base of which only the flat entrance sufficing for t'he 

 bird is situated. As building-material these birds 

 utilise exclusively grass and rice-stalks, which, espe- 

 cially at the outer sides of the nest, are bound together 

 .roughly and untidily, and the entire structure is by no 

 means compact, having a dishevelled aspect, so that at 

 first sight one might take it rather for a bundle of 

 straw or hay t'han for a bird's nest. The number of 

 eggs consists usually of four, rarely five, at times only 

 three. They are pale greenish blue, yet always smaller 

 than those of the allied species (length 27 mm., diameter 

 .20-21 mm.). Eggs and young have dangerous enemies 

 in Crows and Ravens living there." 



Dr. Russ says that it is so seldom imported alive in 

 'Germany that it must ibe regarded as one of the rarest 

 birds in the trade. It is even wanting in the list of 

 birds in the London Zoological Gardens. Yet a bird 

 so abundant in Java may be imported in numbers at 

 any time, and having already been brought home, it 

 cannot be ignored. 



WATTLED STARLING (Dilophus carunculatus). 



Pale drab ; rump and upper tail-coverts whiter ; 

 wing-coverts lighter, primary-coverts, flights and tail 

 black ; head, face, and throat naked, bright yellow ; 

 two erect fleshy wattles on the crown and a pendant 

 lappet in the centre of the throat black ; bill yellow ; 

 feet flesh-colour ; irides 'brown. Female browner, ren- 

 dering the white on the rump more conspicuous ; upper 

 tail-coverts brown ; wings .browner than in the male ; 

 head feathered like the back; lores dusky; sides of 

 face and under-parts more buffish. whiter at centre of 

 .abdomen ; region of eyes and a patch behind bare and 

 .yellow, as well as the sides of the throat. Hab., 

 ""Africa generally, excepting the forest region of the 

 west coast; Southern Arabia." (Sharpe.) 



-Stark observes ("Birds of South Africa," Vol. I., pp. 

 '.24-25) : " The well-known ' Locust Bird ' is of gipsy- 

 like habits, migrating here and there without much 

 Tegard to season, and frequently appearing suddenly in 

 -a district for several days or weeks in flocks numbering 

 tens of thousands, to disappear as suddenly, often for 

 many years. These Starlings are. in fact, so largely 

 dependent for food upon the migrating swarms of locusts 

 "that they are compelled to remain in touch with these 

 insects for the greater portion of the year. A few stray 

 individuals occasionally remain for a time after the 

 larger flocks have taken their departure, and find an 

 asylum in the ranks of the resident Red-winged or 

 "Brown and White Starlings, with both of which species 

 they are on amicable terms. In September, 1869, 

 "Layard found these Locust Birds breeding in vast 

 numbers on the Berg river, about eighty miles from 

 vJape Town, their nests filling many bushes, but they 

 do not appear to have visited this district since that 

 date. In the same year they bred near Bedford. 



" When pursuing a flight of mature locusts these 



Starlings perform various extraordinary and beautiful 

 aerial evolutions with the object of intercepting and 

 surrounding a portion of the swarm, and in doing this 

 their movements closely resemble those of another locust- 

 destroying Starling, the beautiful Rose-coloured Pastor 

 of Eastern Europe and Asia. Individually the two 

 species are very different, collectively and under similar 

 conditions their actions are quite similar. Starting 

 au a dense ' ball-like ' mass, they suddenly open out 

 into a fan-shaped formation, then assume a semi-circular 

 arrangement, and finally end by forming a hollow 

 cylinder in which a portion of the locusts are enclosed ; 

 as the imprisoned insects are destroyed, the Starlings 

 gradually fill up the hollow of the cylinder until they 

 again assume their ' ball ' formation and proceed to 

 follow the remaining locusts. The ground below the 

 flock is covered, with the droppings of the birds and 

 the snipped-off legs and wings of locusts. At other 

 times the Starlings station themselves on the tops of 

 bushes and trees, from which they dart on the flying 

 insects like Flycatchers. When feeding on the ground, 

 on the young locusts, they advance in long lines, three 

 or four deep, the rearmost birds constantly jumping 

 over those in front of them, like English Starlings. 

 When locusts are not to be had the Wattled Starlings 

 will eat almost any variety of insect food, but seem to 

 prefer grasshoppers and small beetles ; occasionally 

 they feed upon berries and seeds." 



" In Cape Colony the Locust Birds usually breed in 

 very large colonies, in localities in which the locusts 

 have deposited their eggs. For hundreds of yards every 

 thorny bush is packed full of cup-shaped nests, even 

 the spaces between the nests being often filled up with 

 sticks or rubbish, through which narrow passages are 

 left for the ingress and egress of the birds. Many 

 Starlings that can find, no room in the bushes build on 

 the ground, or under stones, or in holes, and these 

 unfortunates, together with their eggs or young, ulti- 

 mately become the victims of the smaller carnivorous 

 mammals or of snakes. It frequently happens also that 

 either the young locusts are hatched in insufficient 

 numbers or that they migrate before the young Star- 

 lings are fledged. In either case large numbers of birds 

 perish of hunger, the majority of the old birds and the 

 more advanced young following the locusts. Four or 

 five eggs are laid, usually in August or September ; 

 these are of a very pale blue colour, sometimes with a 

 few specks of black at the larger end, but usually 

 unspotted. They are rather pyriform in shape, and 

 average 1.20 by 0.90." 



Russ speaks of this as one of the rarest of imported 

 birds, and' regrets that he has no knowledge of its 

 behaviour in cage and aviary. Up to 1885 the London 

 Zoological Gardens had exhibited half a dozen exam- 

 ples ; it had ako been exhibited in the Berlin Gardens, 

 and was a species with which the late Mr. J. Abrahams 

 was familiar ; I should therefore not be inclined to 

 support Dr. Russ's view of its extreme rarity. 



Dr. Russ includes the Ro.e-coloured Pastor among 

 the foreign Starlings, but it would certainly have to be 

 included in any work on British birds, as it has occurred 

 in almost every county ; it has even nested in Italy. 

 Therefore if I were to include Pastor roseus I should 

 have, to be consistent, to include the greater part of 

 the European avifauna. 



MANDARIN MYNAH (Sturnia sinensis). 



Above ash-grey, somewhat more buffish on lower 

 back ; rump and' upper tail-coverts creamy-buff ; scapu- 

 lars huffish-white ; lesser and median wing-coverts 

 white; greater coverts creamy-buff; remaining wing- 



