295 



THE ROSE-COLOURED PASTOR. 

 Rose-coloured Starling, Ouzel, or Thrush. 



Pastor roseus, Linn, (sp.) 

 Turdus „ „ 



Has at uncertain intervals, during summer and autumn, 

 visited all quarters of the island, including the 

 range of the most western counties. 



In the course of three successive years, it has been met with. It 

 has generally appeared singly, and during the cherry season, 

 been taken alive in several instances. Mr. Vigors stated, in the 

 Zoological Journal (No. 4, p. 489), that one of these birds had 

 been shot near Wexford, in 1820. In the first volume of the 

 Magazine of Natural History, p. 493, the following communica- 

 tion from Mr. C. Adams Drew, dated Ennis, June 25th, 1828, 

 appeared : — " It is now above twenty years • since, on visiting my 

 friend Mr. Lane at Roxton, I found him in his garden endeavour- 

 ing to shoot a strange bird, which had for several days previous 

 been making sad havoc among his cherries. After two or three 

 unsuccessful attempts on the part of Mr. Lane, the bird at last 

 fell to my barrel. * * * Its cry resembled that of the water- 

 ouzel. It was quite a rara avis in this country, no one knowing 

 anything of it." A description of the bird follows, proving it to 

 have been the Pastor roseus. Dr. R. Graves of Dublin writing to 

 a mutual friend in Belfast, in Nov. 1830, mentioned, that among 

 his late acquisitions had been the P. roseus, shot in a cherry 

 orchard in the county of Clare (in the summer of 1830 ?) by one 

 of his pupils, whose father shot a bird of the same species thirty 

 years before, in the same orchard. A rose-coloured pastor " was 

 captured at Carrigataha, adjoining Ballibrado, county of Tipperary, 

 in June, 1833, by Mr. Win. Eennell, who baited a fish-hook with 

 a cherry, which the bird swallowed, and was thus taken. One 

 was shot in a garden near Dublin on the 20th of July, 1833. On 

 dissection, it proved to be a female ; the eggs were small and not 

 distinct ; gizzard muscular ; the skins of cherries visible, by which 



