SARDINIAN STABLING. 17 



characters at the head of this notice. The males have the drooping 

 feathers from the neck longer than the female. 



According to Temminck it is found in Sardinia among the rocks, 

 where it builds, and it flies about and rests on the houses like its 

 congener. 



Its food and mode of building is exactly the same as the Common 

 Starling. 



The male and female are eritirely black, without spots, having a 

 reflection of purple, but less so in the female. The base of the beak 

 is blackish, with a yellowish tip. Feet yellowish brown. 



The young before the first moult are of a grey brown, always 

 darker than the young of the Common Starling. After the second 

 moult, and during the winter it has small whitish spots on the feathers, 

 which, however, disappear in the spring without a double moult. 



The illustration of the egg is from a specimen in my own collection, 

 sent to me by the late Herr Seidensacher, of Cilli, in Styria. It was 

 taken in Sicily. The bird is from a skin in my own collection, killed 

 at Gibraltar by Mr. Savile Reid. 



I may take this ojjportunity of observing that Mr. Small, a bird- 

 stufier and naturalist, of George Street, Edinburgh, had in his pos- 

 session when the first edition was published a male specimen of the 

 Abyssinian Roller, f Coracias abyssinica,) which was killed near 

 Glasgow a year or two ago. Mr. Small had the bird in the flesh, 

 and preserved the skin himself. He says the female was also obtained 

 a short time after, but forty miles distant from where the male was 

 killed. Mr. Small is a well-known naturalist, and I have not the 

 slightest doubt that the statement is in every point correct; but as I 

 am not aware that this bird, which is distinguished by the two long 

 processes at the end of the outer tail quills, has ever been observed 

 in Europe, and as there is a possibility of the two birds having escaped 

 in confinement, I do not feel justified in introducing it into this work. 

 I notice it here as its place would have been that preceding the bird 

 I have just described. 



VOL. II. 



