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and pale-green ringdoves. One who is not well-versed in bird-lore, seeing these for the first time, would take them to be parrots, and not pigeons. In the colour of the bill and legs they resemble Greek partridges. There are also cocks, which are of extraordinary size, and have their crests not red as elsewhere, or at least in our country, but have the flower-like coronals of which the crest is formed variously coloured. Their rump feathers, again, are neither curved nor wreathed, but are of great breadth, and they trail them in the way peacocks trail their tails, when they neither straighten nor erect them: the feathers of these Indian cocks are in colour golden, and also dark-blue like the smaragdus.
(3) There is found in India also another remarkable bird. This is of the size of a starling and is parti-coloured, and is trained to utter the sounds of human speech. It is even more talkative than the parrot, and of greater natural cleverness. So far is it from submitting with pleasure to be fed by man, that it rather has such a pining for freedom, and such a longing to warble at will in the society of its mates, that it prefers starvation to slavery with sumptuous fare. It is called by the Makedonians who settled among the Indians in the city of Boukephala and its neighbourhood, and in the city called Kuropolis, and others which Alexander the son of Philip built, the Kerkiôn. This name had, I believe, its ori-
