The note of the Rose Starling is a harsh and continuous babble. This bird is protected in the Caucasus and elsewhere because locusts are the favourite food of both the old and the young birds. In the East it is said to be, however, very injurious to grain during the colder season; also I believe, in Africa. This beautiful bird has occurred of late years in most parts of Great Britain, but only, alas, to be shot and “stuffed.” As a rule it visits us in summer and autumn, single birds, perhaps separated somehow from flocks of their own species. In such a case they generally join our own Starlings. This beautiful species is the same size as its congener, the Common Starling, and it resembles the latter in form although so much smarter in appearance. Rump, back, shoulders, breast and underparts are a bright rosy pink, head, neck and throat are a glossy black, wings and tail are a metallic greenish-black. The bill is a yellowish-pink, black at the base; legs yellowish-brown. The long crest of the adult male is composed of fine violet-black feathers. The female is not so brightly tinted and has a smaller crest. The nest of the Rose Starling is built in its own native home in south-eastern Europe in some crevice in a ruin in quarries, cliffs, or among stones in a ravine or a railway cutting. The clutch consists of five to six eggs of a pale bluish-white colour, or pale bluish-green. THE WAXWING. (_Ampelis garrulus._) This beautiful little bird has its nesting place in the far north. It often visits Mid-Europe in winter in great numbers, principally frequenting juniper plantations, where it is easily snared. Its flesh being a great delicacy, it is much sought for. Moving along the headlands it passes also into the valleys, and even visits the gardens and parks of great towns, especially where mistletoe is found on the old trees. When in need it eats seeds; it also feeds on the berries of whitethorn, mountain ash, hawthorn, and other bushes. It has a good appetite and digests its food very quickly, but is somewhat inactive in its movements. It lives in colonies sometimes smaller sometimes larger. Its breeding range extends across Behring Straits to Alaska and the Rocky Mountains. The Waxwing visits Great Britain at irregular intervals, often in large numbers, during the winter. Being an inhabitant of the Arctic regions, its visits are more frequently paid to the Northern and Eastern sides of the country, but it has been seen often in the Southern counties. In Norfolk, on the spring migration, it is sometimes seen up to the first week in May. It is a silent, gentle-mannered bird and its only note is a low _cir-ir-ir-ir-re_. It is essentially a wandering species and is very erratic as to its nesting places, belonging to the class the poet refers to in those lines “The birds of passage transmigrating come, Unnumbered colonies of foreign wing, At Nature’s summons.” [Illustration: USEFUL. THE WAXWING. An erratic winter visitant.]