96 THE BIRDS OF CALCUTTA. 



of this city succeeded in sending one to the London 

 Zoo, where it is still in good health. The curious 

 thing was that, though tame enough in Calcutta, 

 the bird became for a time very wild and nervous 

 in London. But the very intelligent keeper who had 

 it in charge told me that he had found the European 

 EoUers, which he had had for some time in his care,, 

 also very timid, and the same thing was noted about 

 this latter species (Coradas garruh) by Bechstein in 

 his work on cage birds more than a century ago ; so- 

 that possibly the peculiarity runs in the family. The 

 European Roller, which also occurs in the extreme 

 north-west of India, and comes to England frequently 

 to get shot and " recorded," is a migratory species, 

 with much more pale blue and less purple in its 

 plumage than oar " Blue-jay." Curiously enough, it 

 is sometimes called La German the Birch-jay, so that 

 the superficial resemblance to the jay has struck 

 Europeans independently in two distant countries. 



The Americans, however, do not seem to have been 

 taken in, being no doubt too well acquainted with 

 their own Blue-jay (Cyanodtta cristata), which really 

 is in a literal sense what its name proclaims it to be. 

 There are no Rollers in America, and when Brother 

 Jonathan gets over the unreasonable horror of accli- 

 matization with which his too successful experiment 

 with PhiUp Sparrow has filled him, he cannot do- 



