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nest. Indeed our observations on the spot answer completely to the account given to us by the 

 people in Bournatut on the 30th — namely, that the young with their parents had then already 

 arrived in the gardens four or five days, — and to what was told us by a chasseur whom we met, 

 who said that he had found a great number of young full-fledged in the nest on the 22nd of 

 June in a different locality from this. For this reason we found amongst large numbers of nests 

 only two with young unfledged ; all the others were flown. Of eggs we found but very few, all 

 addled, and not more than two in a nest. 



"These eggs measure, on the average, 13 lines in long diameter and 9 \ lines in short 

 diameter. I say on the average, because we did not find two exactly alike, some being pear- 

 shaped, others elliptical. Some are fleshy white, others pearl-white with a tinge of blue ; some 

 have a few small, dark specks at the thick end. The shell is very beautiful, strong, and shining. 

 Although the general number of eggs may be two or three (judging from the number of young 

 which were in company with their parents on the first days of their flight), yet it may never- 

 theless often amount to four or five. 



" The great difference in number between the males and females which I spoke of in my last 

 letter, having found eight males out of ten individuals procured, is reducible to a much smaller 

 proportion ; for although the difference exists, it appears greater, because most of the birds were 

 procured at the breeding-time, when the females were passing most of the day on the nest. 

 Another fact leads towards the same conclusion — namely, that the males whilst the females are 

 sitting can go off by themselves in search of grasshoppers, and then, with grasshoppers in their 

 beaks, fly away back to the mountains, no doubt in order to feed the sitting female, or, later in 

 the season, the young. The perseverance with which the Rose Starlings search for grasshoppers 

 seems to have its origin not so much in regard for their own supply of food as in an instinctive 

 desire of destruction or antipathy against them. The Rose Starlings dart down upon them and 

 kill them, uttering continual cries and squalls, and leave the greater part of them untouched on 

 the earth. 



" One morning as I was observing, for half an hour together, five Rose Starlings, I saw two 

 or three of them dart down suddenly from the tree to the earth, in order to kill some grass- 

 hoppers which appeared between the swathes of a mown field of grass, and leave them without 

 eating them. The birds are so far from shy, that a person can easily remain within four or five 

 paces of them without frightening them ; and on the trees they will remain with still greater 

 confidence. 



" The old birds are very careful of their young ; and directly one of them calls, up comes 

 the male or female directly to lead it out of harm's way. The young seem able to feed without 

 assistance directly they have flown ; and the old ones only lead them about in order that they may 

 find their food more easily. The quick development of the young enables them to leave the old 

 after the expiration of from ten to twelve days ; for I assure you that to-day the greater part of 

 the old birds have disappeared, and the young are already assembled together in flocks." 



The eggs of the Rose-coloured Starling somewhat resemble those of the Starling, but are 

 much paler in colour. I have several in my collection, obtained by Dr. Cullen near Kustendjie, 

 in Turkey, which, when first received, were delicate pale French grey in colour, but have now 

 faded nearly to pure white, and, indeed, can only be distinguished to be pale bluish white by 



