ROSE-COLOURED PASTOR. 53 



THE genus Pastor was proposed by M. Temminck for 

 several birds which exhibit various relations to the Star- 

 lings and the Crows ; only one of these, the Rose-coloured 

 Pastor, is an accidental visitor to this country ; and though 

 several years sometimes intervene from one occurrence to 

 another, the beauty of the bird attracts particular notice, 

 and its capture has probably been more regularly re- 

 corded than that of many other birds that are equally rare. 



It may not be altogether useless to include here a brief 

 enumeration of those instances that have come to my know- 

 ledge, some from the records of the observers, and others 

 from private communications. The bird was first noticed 

 as British by Edwards, who appears to have taken his re- 

 presentation from a specimen killed at Norwood. Mr. 

 Gould, in his Birds of Europe, mentions one that was shot 

 by his friend John Newman at Iver Court ; and Shaw re- 

 cords one that was killed in Oxfordshire. It has been met 

 with in Sussex; and during the summer of 1838, a pair 

 were seen near Christchurch, in Hampshire, and shot at : 

 the male only was obtained ; the female, though believed 

 to be wounded, got away : this communication was sent to 

 me by the Hon. Mr. Harris, son of the Earl of Malmes- 

 bury. A pair, now in the British Museum, were killed in 

 Devonshire ; and two or three other instances of the oc- 

 currence of this species in the same county are recorded 

 by Dr. Edward Moore, in his published catalogue of the 

 Birds of Devonshire, in the Magazine of Natural History 

 for 1837. This bird has been shot at Helston in Corn- 

 wall, and also on the Scilly Islands : the latter specimen 

 is now in the collection of E. H. Rodd, Esq., of Penzance. 

 Mr. L. LI. Dillwyn has in his possession a specimen shot in 

 July, 1836, while eating cherries in a nursery-garden, near 

 Swansea. Mr. Eyton has recorded one instance that came 

 to his knowledge which was shot at Holyhead; and it 



