THE ROSE-COLOURED STARLING 139 



set strenuously about the task of clearing or enlarging them. All 

 the furniture and refuse of the former owners was sent flying down 

 to the foot of the walls. Out came stones, bits of rock or brick, 

 sticks and straws, even the skulls and bones of animals that had 

 found a tomb in some crevice or had been taken there to feed the 

 young of owls. The conquest and cleansing of the holes was the 

 work of one day (June 4th). Next day at dawn began the nest- 

 building. About June 17th there were eggs in the nest, and on 

 the 14th July young and old those that escaped the clutches of 

 the birdcatchers were on their way south to other lands. The visit 

 had not lasted six weeks. 1 



The rosy-pastor builds its nest not only in holes in buildings, 

 walls, quarries and the like, but also under or among masses of loose 

 stones. 2 The best account of a breeding-place of the latter type will 

 be found in the Zoologist of 1857. 3 On the slope of one of the rugged 

 hills on the west of Asia Minor, overlooking the Gulf of Smyrna, in an 

 area of about 200 square yards, covered with rocks all white with 

 excreta, the writer found thousands of nests, some in the open, quite 

 uncovered, others concealed among the boulders, and others again in 

 holes, sometimes more than a foot deep. Many were built so close 

 as to touch one another. Some were lined, more or less carefully, 

 rather less than more, some were mere depressions in the ground. 

 Here in this great nursery on the sunny hill-slope the happy noisy 

 crowded rosy birds came and went the livelong day bringing food 

 for the young, pausing to rest or sing upon the stones, or to squabble 

 with a neighbour, or to brood upon the nest : and here again, behind 

 the beauty and brightness, the joy and devotion, there lurked the 

 eternal tragedy. Just as the birds themselves carried death to their 

 insect victims, so they in turn were the victims of jackals, martens, 



1 Zoologist, 1878, pp. 18-19. 



2 First-hand evidence as to the nesting sites of Pastor roseus will be found in Petenyi, 

 OrniUwlogiscJie Fragmente ; Dresser, Birds of Europe, iv. ; Seebohm, ii. p. 22 ; Ibis, 1883, p. 575 ; 

 O. Reiser, Ornis balcanica, II. Bulgarian ; Zoologist, 1878, p. 18 (E. de Betta) ; ibid. 1857, p. 5608 

 (Antinori). 



5 Translation of an account by the Marquis G. Antinori, p. 5(568. The same may be found in 

 Dresser's Birds of Europe, iv. 



