36 STUBNID^ LAMPKOCOLIUS 



crossed by numerous but nearly invisible bars of darker brown and 

 bronzed with blue ; primaries dark brown bronzed with blue and 

 green, especially on the outer webs ; abdomen glossed with purple, 

 blue and violet, the flanks with blue and green ; vent and thighs 

 black, the thighs slightly bronzed with blue; under tail-coverts 

 glossed with violet and purple ; axillaries and under wing-coverts 

 black bronzed with purple and blue. 



Iris hazel ; bill and feet black. 



Length 14-00; wing 7'50 ; tail 6-70; tarsus 1'85; culmen 1-00. 



Adult female. Like the male in colour, but much smaller. 

 Length 10-50 ; wing 6-80 ; tail 5-75. 



Distribution. From the neighbourhood of Colesberg, in Cape 

 Colony, through the Orange Free State and the Transvaal into 

 Bechuana, Matabili, and Mashona Lands, thence through the Lake 

 N'Gami district, where it abounds, according to Andersson, into 

 Angola. It is one of the commonest birds at Hunibe as Anchieta 

 states. 



Habits. This large and very beautiful Glossy Starling appears 

 to be everywhere rather shy in its habits, much more so than are 

 the majority of its congeners. In the Northern Transvaal, where it 

 abounds in certain favourite localities, usually where there are a good 

 many trees and bushes growing on the banks of rivers, it may be 

 frequently seen feeding on the ground in flocks, often in the company 

 of Lamprocolius bispecularis. It is at once distinguished from the 

 latter species not only by its greater size, larger wings, and longer 

 tail, but by its much heavier and more laboured flight. Burchell's 

 Starling is a lively bird, vivacious in all its actions, constantly 

 flitting its tail, frequently carrying it at right angles to its body as if 

 to show off its glossy plumage to the greatest advantage. Its notes 

 are loud, harsh and clamorous. Like all the Glossy Starlings it is 

 omnivorous as regards food, feeding largely on berries and fruit, 

 but also on insects, including locusts and termites; Anchieta remarks 

 that, in Angola, this species "feeds on fruit and termites." It 

 obtains its food both from trees and on the ground ; Sir Andrew Smith 

 says "from high trees exclusively," but he made this observation 

 after having seen these birds on one or two occasions only in a 

 particular locality. 



Mr. Buckley states in his "Birds observed during a journey to 

 Matabililand " (Ibis, 1874, p. 378) that these Starlings, at the time 

 of his visit in June, 1873, were building under the eaves of the 

 houses in Pretoria. More usually they breed in the holes of trees, 



