STARE OR STARLING. PASTOR. 75 



numbers exposed for sale in the different markets of the 

 city. 



Like the jackdaw, the stare is found as constant in its at- 

 tendance upon the old crumbling ruin as in more natural 

 places. Thus, those who have been in the vicinity of our 

 round towers must have been surprised at the harsh grating 

 cry of the starling from the interior, in some of which they 

 form perfect colonies, as instanced in the round towers of 

 Monasterboice and Donaghmore, in the counties of Louth 

 and Meath ; through whose narrow windows we have seen 

 them passing in and out, flying amicably over the jackdaws 

 perched at the entrance. 



At the same time, as much prized for its beauty and varying 

 colours as for its powers of mimicry, the stare is a favourite 

 cage-bird with many, and learns with some care to speak many 

 words distinctly enough to be understood, of which powers Mr. 

 Macgillivray, in his British Birds, affords us the following ex- 

 ample : u When I entered the room where the stare was, he 

 cried out ' Come in, sir, and take a seat ; I see by your face 

 you are fond of the lasses. George, send for a coach and six 

 for pretty Charley. Be clever, George, I want it immedi- 

 ately.' " 



Sensible, without doubt, were the sounds the caged pri- 

 soner uttered ; but we have never seen a bird of this species 

 caged without the " I can't get out," " I can't get out," of 

 Sterne's starling ringing in our ears. 



So different is the change of plumage between the young 

 bird and the adult that many naturalists have confounded 

 them, and described the young by the name of the " solitary 

 thrush." Like other species, the habits of the stare lead it to 

 the vicinity of cattle, or where the ground has been broken 

 up by the spade or plough. 



Indigenous. 



GENUS XXXV. PASTOR (PASTOR). 



SPECIES 71 THE ROSE-COLOURED PASTOR. 



Pastor roseus. Linn. 

 Martin roselin. Temm. 



THIS beautiful bird has been obtained in about twenty diffe- 

 rent instances over Ireland, varying in locality from the 

 neighbourhood of Dublin to the remotest isles of Arran, on 

 the Galway coast. According to Degland :* " Le martin 



* Ornithologie Europeenne. 



