ROSE-COLOURED PASTOR. 55 



and Siberia ; and I have seen skins from four very widely 

 separated localities in India. Colonel Sykes, in his Cata- 

 logue of the Birds of the Dukhun, says, " These birds 

 darken the air by their numbers, at the period of the ripen- 

 ing of the bread grains, Andropogon sorghum, and Ponicum 

 spicatum, in Dukhun, in December. Forty or fifty have 

 been killed at a shot. They prove a calamity to the hus- 

 bandman, as they are as destructive as locusts, and not 

 much less numerous." 



B. H. Hodgson, Esq., includes the Rose-coloured Pastor 

 in his Catalogue of the Birds of Nepal, and Mr. Blyth finds 

 it in the vicinity of Calcutta. 



It inhabits Syria, Egypt, and Africa, passing occasionally 

 in summer to breed in the warmer countries north of the 

 Mediterranean. At Aleppo it is held sacred, because it 

 feeds on the locust. Specimens have been obtained several 

 times in the neighbourhood of Geneva ; and in the transla- 

 tion of M. Bechstein's work on Cage Birds, it is stated 

 that " a sportsman discovered in 1774, in the environs of 

 Meiningen in Suabia, a flight of eight or ten Rose Ouzels, 

 moving leisurely from south-west to north-east, and passing 

 from one cherry-tree to another. He fired on these birds: 

 only one fell, which was fortunately very slightly wounded, 

 so that it soon recovered. Being immediately carried to M. 

 Von Wachter, the rector of Frickenhausen, this clergyman 

 took the greatest care of it : he gave it a spacious cage ; and 

 found that barley meal, moistened with milk, was as whole- 

 some as agreeable to it. His kindness tamed it in a short 

 time so far that it would come and take from his hand the 

 insects which he offered it. It soon sang, also ; but its 

 warbling consisted at first of but a few harsh sounds, pretty 

 well connected, however ; and this became at length more 

 clear and smooth. Connoisseurs in the songs of birds dis- 

 cover in this song a mixture of many others : one of these 



