STUENID^ LAMPBOCOLIUS 39 



and berries, as well as a variety of seeds and insects. I have 

 frequently seen this Starling catching the winged termites as they 

 issued from the ground. It is a bird of lively habits, frequently 

 taking short flights and returning to its perch, and constantly uttering 

 its loud, mellow notes, varied at intervals with a short song which 

 depends for its merit a good deal on the individual performer, and 

 is not unlike that of the English Starling. Small parties of these 

 Glossy Starlings are often to be seen sitting on the tops of high 

 trees, their metallic green and copper-coloured plumage glistening in 

 the sun, and recognisable at a distance by their bright orange-yellow 

 irides. In Spring the winter flocks separate into pairs, which 

 distribute themselves through the bush in search of a convenient 

 hole in which to place their nest. Usually they make use of a 

 natural hole or cavity in a tree-trunk, but sometimes take possession 

 of one dug by a woodpecker after driving away the rightful owners. 

 Not unfrequently they build under the eaves of a barn or house, and 

 Mr. Barratt remarks that, on his farm on the Chalumna, British 

 Kaffraria, they " frequented the barns and buildings, continually 

 flying to and fro, like English Starlings." The nest holes are 

 thickly lined with dry grass, feathers, and hair, on which four or 

 five eggs are laid. These are usually somewhat elongated in shape, 

 of a pale bluish-green ground colour, sparingly spotted with pale 

 reddish-brown. They average about 1-10 x 0-80. 



15. Lamprocolius phcenicopterus bispecularis. 



Lesser Red-- shouldered Glossy Starling. 



Spreo bispecularis, StricH. Contr. Orn. 1852, p 149. 



Juida decorata, Layard, B. S. Afr. p. 171 (1867). 



Lamprocolius phoenicopterus, Gurneij in Andersson's B. Damara Land, 



p. 160; Sharpe, ed. Layard's B. S. Afr. pp. 425, 846 (partim) (1884). 

 Lampr&colius phoenicopterus, subsp. a. bispecularis, Sharpe, Cat. B. M. 



xiii, p. 181 (1890). 



Description. Adult male. Similar to the male of L. phoeni- 

 copterus, but distinctly smaller; the wings and back steel-green 

 instead of oil-green in colour. Iris orange ; bill and feet black. 



Length 8-20; wing 5-00; tail 3-50; tarsus 1-20; culmen 0-70. 



This race replaces the true L. phcenicopterus in Natal, Zululand, 

 the Orange Free State, the Transvaal, Swaziland and Portuguese 

 East Africa. It was found by Dr. Holub in West Matabililand and 



