5668 Birds. 



On the Migration and Breeding of Pastor rose us in the Neigh- 

 bourhood of Smyrna. By the Marquis Oratio Antinori. 

 Translated by Philip Lutley Sclater, Esq. 



The fifth part of last year's ' Naumarmia' contains a very interesting 

 account of the migration and nesting of the rosecoloured pastor in the 

 neighbourhood of Smyrna, from the pen of the Marquis Oratio Antinori, 

 of Perugia, in Italy, already well known to Continental naturalists for 

 his writings on Natural History, and in particular for his recent 

 researches in Ornithology in Asia Minor and Palestine. To him, 

 I believe, we are indebted for the discovery of a very curious black- 

 bird with a hooked nail on its wing (Meruhi dactyloplera of Prince 

 Bonaparte, and the type of his genus Pleronychia), of which there is 

 a specimen in the Paris Museum, of a new swift and honey-bird from 



the Ho-ly Land (Cypselus galilceensis and Nectarinia ), and 



various other novelties from that country. 



The article on Pastor roseus will, I think, be very interesting to 

 English ornithologists, as it is one of the birds included in the British 

 list, concerning which authentic information as to its nesting and eggs 

 is most scanty. It is somewhat as follows : — 



" The rosecoloured pastors began their passage on their northern 

 migration through the neighbourhood of Smyrna this year about the 

 15th of May ; for on this day 1 found myself in the field, and I ob- 

 served large flights passing rather from south-west to north-east than 

 from south to north-east, as on the following days. One of these flights 

 passed so close over me that I managed to kill four out of them in 

 one shot. They were all young birds of the first or second year, and 

 as in the whole flight 1 did not perceive the beautiful red colouring of 

 the old male (which can be easily distinguished in the air) 1 concluded 

 that it consisted only of young birds of that age. This supposition 

 was further confirmed by the fact that out of the various individuals 

 procured by other sportsmen on the same day not one had the plumage 

 of the third year. I am sure that the complete plumage of the adult 

 is only attained at the end of the third year, perhaps not until the 

 fourth ; for some young birds which have been kept in cages in the 

 vicinity of Smyrna since last year have hardly yet attained their full 

 plumage, which is exactly such as is described by Professor Bonelli 

 in Tern mi nek. 



" On the 14th of May, when again in the field with Herr von Gor- 

 zenbach, we saw an immense multitude of old birds passing at a small 



