This nearly tame bird, likely a variety of starling, lived until the mid-nineteenth century on the Mascarene island of Bourbon, now called Re'union. Native Islanders told the last known naturalists to have seen this huppe, as they called it, that the twelve inch bird was so trusting it could be knocked from branches with sticks. Whether this was for food, sport, or plumage remains unclear, but it certainly led to their demise. The last one seen was shot in 1835. (Fregilupus various).
Bourbon Crested Starling, after a painting by E. deMaes and subsequent chromolithograph from J. Fraipont's Collections Zoologiques du Baron Edmund de Selys Longchamp-Oiseaux (1910). Framed in a modest black vintage frame.