amethyst starling

plural amethyst starlings

1. Synonym of violet-backed starling.

   One of his hens was being attacked by an amethyst starling, plucking her downy feathers to line its nest.

   2010, Per Wästberg, translated by Tom Geddes, chapter 10, in The Journey of Anders Sparrman, London: Granta, →ISBN, page 172

   2 more examples

   Now, in certain lights (for afterwards I saw the bird many times) the plumage does not appear copper-coloured but the prevailing appearance is purple, and in Rhodesia the egg-collecting schoolboys call the amethyst starling a “purple-back”. Apart from his marvellous purple beauty I doubt if any bird has a breast of a purer and more gleaming white.

   1937, Madeline Alston, “Birds at Livingstone (Northern Rhodesia)”, in Wanderings of a Bird-Lover in Africa, London: H. F. & G. Witherby Ltd. […], →OCLC, part III (In Rhodesia), page 143

   In western Arabia and northern Abyssinia females of the amethyst starling are very uniform earthy brown above, though the males are like those of the nominate race; thus C. l. arabicus Grant and Mackworth-Praed is a well-established race.

   1954, James P[aul] Chapin, “Cinnyricinclus leucogaster leucogaster (Boddaert)”, in The Birds of the Belgian Congo (Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History; 75B), part 4, New York, N.Y.: American Museum of Natural History, →OCLC, Section B (Systematic List of Species and Races, with Notes on Distribution, Habits, and Food), Order Passeriformes, Family Sturnidae, Subfamily Sturninae, page 146

   Synonyms: violet-backed starling