Common Mynah. 

 AcridotJieres tristis. 



VIIL THE MYNAH. 



" I am not black in my heart, though yellow in my legs-." 

 Shakespeare. 



THE Mynah needs perhaps to make some apology for his 

 yellow stockings, since such mustard-coloured understand- 

 ings are not usual among small birds, pertaining rather to 

 the rapacious tribe, and being thus a badge of anything but 

 respectability. But the Mynah atones for his yellow legs, 

 feet, and face, by the exceedingly decorous plumage which 

 covers the rest of him ; no objection can be made to his 

 black hood, or the sober chocolate of his body colour, or 

 to the plain black, diversified with white, of his quills and 

 tail. It is no wonder that Linnseus, probably having only 

 seen a Mynah stuffed, and concluding from his general 

 style that he was some poor relation of the Bird of Paradise, 

 called him Tristis, the sad-coloured, for as a Paradisea he 

 did not show up well. He has long, however, been degrad- 

 ed to his proper rank among the starlings, and named 



