OF NOETHTOrBEELAXD AXP DTTRHAM. 45 



The adult male and female during the breeding season, the 

 margins of the feathers having been removed by abrasion, have the 

 head, crest, neck, and upper part of the breast of a pure glossy- 

 black reflecting purple; the wing coverts, quills, tail feathers, 

 under tail coverts, and thighs glossy black, with bluish green 

 reflections. The basal half of the mandible is black. 



The young, before the moult, are of an Isabella brown colour', 

 somewhat paler on the under parts. The lowest figure (Plate 

 rV.) represents the young. After the first moult they resemble 

 the freshly moulted adults, but are less brilliant in colour, and 

 the crest is smaller. 



Immediately after the autumnal moult the young and the adult 

 are scarcely distinguishable ; at this time the obscuration of the 

 beautiful tints of the breeding season is gxeatest. The abrasion 

 of the margins of the feathers then at once commences, and, be- 

 fore the nesting time arrives, the beauty of the plumage is fully 

 developed. The middle figure (Plate lY.) represents the adult 

 male in this state of plumage. 



Mr. Jerdon, in his work on " The Birds of India," says, that 

 the Rose-coloured Starling makes its appearance in the Peninsula 

 about the end of IN'ovember, or beginning of December, and dis- 

 appears in March, and remarks, that the majority of the birds in 

 a flock are in an immature plumage of a dirty fawn colour. This 

 is just what might be expected, only the birds are not immature, 

 but, having recently moulted, the margins of the feathers are as 

 yet to a great extent retained; hence the "dirty fawn colour." 

 This view of the case is confirmed by what the Marquis Oratio 

 Antinore says in his interesting account of this species, in a 

 paper translated by Dr. Sclater, in the "Zoologist" for 1856. 



According to this authority, the breeding time of the Eose- 

 coloured Starling is June and July, and as the moult does not 

 take place till after this season, it is evident that the new feathers 

 could not be much worn at the time mentioned by Jerdon, namely, 

 from December to March. The Marquis further states, that on 

 the 26th of May, "about sun-rise, great numbers of these birds 

 were settling so closely packed upon the trees as to make them 

 look as if they were all covered with red roses." The feathers 



