THRUSH. 59 



41.— GILDED THRUSH. 



Turdus auratus, Lid. Orn. i. 347. Gin. Lin. i. 819. 



Sturnus auratus, Nabirop, Daud. ii. 312. 



Merle violet du Roj'aume de Juida, Bitf. iii. 373. PL enl. 540. 



Stourne, Tern. Man. Ed. ii. Anal. p. lvi. 



Le Nabirop, Levail. Ois. pi. 89. 



Shining Stare, Nat. Misc. pi. 873. 



Gilded Thrush, Gen. Syn. iii. 57. Shaw's Zool. x. 248. 



SIZE of a Thrush. Bill brown ; irides yellow; head, neck, and 

 under parts of the body violet; back and wings gilded green, with 

 a band of blue on the inner edge of the latter ; upper tail coverts 

 and tail blue ; legs reddish brown. 



Inhabits Whidah in Africa. M. Levaillant considers his bird 

 as distinct from this, or at least doubts the circumstance, and says 

 the bill and legs are black ; irides orange-yellow ; the plumage is of 

 the most resplendent, gilded blue and green imaginable, the green 

 changing into steel blue, and purple, the latter occupying the head, 

 cheeks, and hind part of the neck, the rest mostly of a changeable 

 gilded green ; the wing coverts in some lights appearing gilded blue ; 

 the vent green, changing to violet blue; tail of a moderate length, 

 rounded, the outer feathers being half an inch shorter than the 

 two middle ones ; the colour deep changeable green ; the wings reach 

 rather beyond the middle of it. The female smaller than the male. 



This species is found in the interior parts of the Cape of Good 

 Hope, but not at the Cape itself; seen by thousands in a flock about 

 the Gamtoo and Camdeboo, also on the Elephant River, and from 

 thence to the Namaquas, yet not at all times of the year; sometimes 

 so numerous, that it was easy to kill eight or ten at a shot : they 

 make the nest in hollow trees, and sometimes in the banks of earth, 

 like the Bee-eaters, and lay five or six eggs of a fine bluish green ; 

 called by the colonists Groene Spreeuw (Green Starling) ; feeds on 



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