22 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



History" regarding its occurrence at Rowdil Old Church in 

 South Harris about 1797, and again in 1804. 



The above notes are all extracted from our volume on the 

 Outer Hebrides (pp. 68-69), and there is little to add since 

 that volume was issued in 1888. 



It seems to us therefore that two great centres of habita- 

 tion have influenced the dispersal of the species : an earlier one 

 in the Shetlands, Orkney, and the Outer Hebrides, and north 

 coasts and north-east of Caithness, from north-east towards 

 south-west ; and a later one, entering Scotland in the south 

 and passing north through the south and central districts of 

 Scotland. Moray appears to have drawn its supplies from 

 the northward, in comparatively recent years ; but the districts 

 to the south of the Grampians mostly, if not entirely, from 

 the southwards. How much these have been augmented by 

 migrations from Continental areas is of course difficult to 

 decide, but there seems to be sufficient evidence in our cor- 

 relation of dates to warrant the supposition that such an aug- 

 mentation has taken place, as also in a correlation of parallel 

 statistics connected with many other well-known species. 



It might not, perhaps, be too rash to predict that the 

 day may yet arrive when the Starling having increased still 

 more prodigiously, and every crevice and cranny having 

 become populated by these cosmopolites, a great struggle for 

 existence even amongst themselves may become necessary 

 to preserve the balance of nature. Before this can take 

 place, however, the probability exists that some other weaker 

 species may have to go to the wall. Indeed there are already 

 indications of such a fact in at least one instance and 

 locality, by sheer force of numbers, about which we may 

 have more to say at another opportunity. 



MAP. 



It only remains for me to say, the present distribution of 

 the Starling scarcely requires any mapping, so general and 

 omnipresent is the species. In the map accompanying this 

 paper we have not therefore attempted to indicate it speci- 

 ally ; and they are only the earlier movements which we 

 have chronicled upon the map, and these only sufficient to 

 illustrate the remarks made in this paper. 



