STARLING IN SCOTLAND, INCREASE AND DISTRIBUTION 19 



year by year increased. No district throughout the county 

 is now without them, and they remain all the year round. 

 The direction whence they first came was from the south. 

 So far as Mr. Sim can recollect, 1860 was the year of the 

 first nest found ; but he had also been informed of a pair 

 nesting between two chimneys in Peterhead in 1850, and in 

 the old Castle of Tolquhon in 1856. The principal winter 

 roost is at Courtstone, where they congregate in thousands. 



MORAY. 



" Old Statistical Account," Kirkhill, Inverness-shire, vol. 



iv. (I79 2 ). P- IJ 4- 



" New Statistical Account," Ardersier, Nairn, vol. xiv. 



p. 464. 



We find in the " New Statistical Account " the notice that 

 a " brood of fully fledged Starlings was seen in the church- 

 yard, on the 5th June 1841," of the parish of Ardersier, which 

 is the extreme north-east corner of the county. 



Edward spoke of it as " rapidly increasing." It is 

 recorded as early as 1844 by Dr. Gordon : "Seen in small 

 flocks in the spring and autumn, and even sometimes in 

 December." Again, " A few, like a brood, has been the 

 only indication of their breeding in this part of the country " 

 (i.e. by 1844). Captain Dunbar's testimony is also given as 

 to their great scarcity when he was a lad, and similar remarks 

 come to us from Abernethy on Spey, from Rev. Dr. Forsyth. 

 In 1851 Starlings have been most abundant, and continued 

 longer than hitherto observed to do ; and they were supposed 

 to have become so, on account of the abundance of a small 

 caterpillar, Plutella cruciferarum, in the turnip-fields. 



Of late years, as we have ourselves observed, Starlings 

 are occupying even the cleared lands amongst the great 

 pine forests of Rothiemurchus and Glenmore, etc., and have 

 lately taken possession of old Great Spotted Woodpeckers' 

 holes at the base of Carnacruinch Hill. By 1893 the 

 increase became startlingly apparent, and they had reached 

 far up among the foot-hills of the Cairngorms. In a very 

 few years more, at the same rate of dispersal, it will be 

 omnipresent. 



