148 GRAKLE. 



triangular bare red space, taking rise from the nostrils, as a line ; 

 throat, neck, and upper parts of the breast blackish, tinged with 

 grey ; lower part of the latter, back, rump, scapulars, upper and 

 under wing, and upper tail coverts and thighs, chestnut brown ; 

 belly, sides, edge of the wing, under wing and tail coverts, whitish ; 

 prime quills half white, half dusky, secondaries brown ; tail deeper 

 brown, the side feathers tipped with white ; legs yellow.* The 

 female like the male in plumage. 



Inhabits the Philippine Islands, and Bombay ; also Ceylon ; is 

 a various feeder, aud very gluttonous in its appetite ; is useful in its 

 wild state, in freeing the backs of oxen from vermin, and has been 

 known, when kept in confinement, to swallow a young rat, more 

 than two inches long, whole, after bruising it against the wires of 

 its cage ; is also very fond of locusts and grasshoppers. They build 

 twice in a year, chiefly in the forks of palm trees, though not 

 unfrequently in outhouses, making a coarse sort of nest, and generally 

 lay four blue eggs. The young birds are easily tamed, and soon learn 

 to speak, imitating the cries of the common domestic poultry, &c. 



This was ranked formerly by Linnaeus with his Paradise Bird, on 

 account of the velvet-like feathers about the bill; but why he should 

 have named it tristis is not so clear, as, according to Dr. Buchanan, 

 it is the most cheerful bird in India : it has a great variety of musical 

 powers, is often very noisy, but sometimes, especially at dawn, has 

 a pleasant chirping song. When these birds meet with a snake, they 

 assemble round it, and scream violently, and by this means discover 

 it to others ; when tame, it will imitate the human voice ; eats grain, 

 milk, and insects ; builds in trees, lays the eggs in June, in the 

 hollows, on a little straw ; a nest of one met with, of twenty inches 

 in diameter, was made of bents ; in it were two greenish blue eggs, 

 one end much narrower than the other. Dr. B. says it abounds in 



* I observe a drawing of one from India, with the bill, caruncle, and legs orange. This 

 is called Gursall Mainah. Another of these, not widely differing, was named Saulak. 



