172 BIRDS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 



They subsist on berries and grubs of all kinds, as is the habits of other 

 starlings, and breed in trees, or on the ground, laying five or six 

 blueish-green eggs. 



340. Juida RufiventriS. (Rupp.) Lamprotornis 



Bufiventris, Ruppell, Faun., t. 11, f. 2. 

 HEAD brown, with a faint purple gloss ; back, shoulders, 

 throat, and breast, a shining coppery-green, with a brownish 

 tint ; wings brown, more or less glossed with green, inner 

 vanes of feathers white towards quills ; tail, deep shining 

 green, belly and insides of shoulders ferruginous ; bill and 

 legs reddish brown. Lsngth, 8". 



Inhabits the Interior of South Africa. Dr. A. Smith, S. Af. A. J., 

 Vol. 2, p. 134. Swainson quotes it as a West African species. 



341. Juida Erythrogaster, Bodd. ; Guv. Vol. 6, 



p. 394. ; Turdus Ckrysogaster, Gmel., PI. En., t. 221 ; 

 Guv., Vol. 6, p. 373 ; L'Orambleu, Buff. 



THE whole upper parts, greenish-blue ; beneath orange ; bill 

 and feet black. 

 " Inhabits South Africa." Cuvier (loc. cit.) sed non vidi. 



\jyr- 



342. Juida BiCOlor, Gmel. ; Turdus Grillivorus, 

 Barrow ; Lamprotornis Bicolor, Linneeus, Cuvier, 

 Vol. 1, p. 393 ; Turdus Bicolor, Lath. ; Nautauges 

 Bicolor, Cab. ; Le Spreo, Le Vail., PL 88 ; Lam. 

 Albiventris, Swain. 



GENERAL colour, biown, changing into shot-green on the 

 neck and tail ; lower part of belly and vent, white ; base of 

 lower mandible, yellow. Length, 11" ; wing, 6" ; tail, 4" 2"'. 



The common spreo is found throughout the colony, frequenting 

 places about which cattle are accustomed to graze, for the purpose of 

 feeding on the insects which congregate upon their dung. They also 

 constantly perch on the cattle, to rid them of the parasites with which 

 they are infested. 



They congregate during our winter season in small flocks, flying 

 thickly together, and uttering loud and repeated chirps. At the breed- 

 ing season they separate into pairs, and retire to rocks or houses to 

 build, forming their nests of sticks, small roots, and fibres, in holes 

 and crevices, and laying four or five lovely light-blue eggs, sometimes 

 faintly spotted with brown at obtuse end : axis, 1" 2'" ; diam., 10'". 



They also breed in the sides of the gullies so frequent in the surface 

 of the country, and called sluitjes, digging holes into the clay. When 

 walking about over the newly -ploughed land, hunting for grubs, they 

 have much the manners of the European startling, and would be 

 immediately recognised by even a casual observer as being allied to 

 them. 



