330 NOVITATES ZOOLOGICAE XXV. 1918. 



that Mr. Grant did not mention tlic Faeroe Islands Starling, which is nearest to 

 Zetland ic us. Mr. Ogilvie-Grant's remarks were criticized by Mr. t'laud B. Tice- 

 hurst in the Scottish Naturalist, 1915, p. .3. I cannot agree with Mr. Ticehurst's 

 observations. It is quite true that the contrast of the white throat and the rufous 

 edges to the wings and tail in the young, to which Ogilvie-Grant called attention, 

 are merely individual characters, but the dark general colour remains. PAhaps 

 Ticehurst compared only Fair Isle examples, which are not typical of the 

 Shetland Island form. The common Starhng is variable, and so are the young 

 particularly, as Ticehurst correctly remarks, but specimens approaching the 

 young of faroensis and zetlandicus are extremely rare exceptions, so rare that 

 I have only seen one from Kcw Gardens, collected by Dr. Giinther and possibly 

 discoloured by soot, and one from Sweden, while aU the others are strikingly 

 paler. On the other hand all young Starlings seen from the real Shetland 

 Islands are dark brown, though not really " black." 



Specimens from Fair Isle are puzzling. This island is reckoned to belong 

 to the Shetlands, but it lies quite separated midway between the Shetlands 

 and Orkneys, though " within sight of the Shetlands," as Dr. Eagle Clarke 

 tells me. Of the four adult specimens in the Edinburg Museum some have bills 

 as in zetlandicus, others as in vulgaris, also the wings vary, measuring : $ 126'5, 

 ? 128, (J 137, S 131 mm. Of the four young in full juvenile plumage one is of 

 the darkest colour (as dark as young faroensis and zetlandicus, another as light 

 as young vulgaris, the two others darker than usual vulgaris, but not quite so 

 deeply coloured as the first ; three more are in full moult and difficult to judge, 

 but evidently rather dark, though not of the darkest type. One must therefore 

 say that these birds are on the whole intermediate between vulgaris and zet- 

 londicus. Possibly StarUngs have populated Fair Isle comparatively recently, 

 and maybe from the north and south, as we know they have spread consider- 

 ablj' in Scotland and on the Inner Hebrides, and in Ireland, during the last fifty 

 years or so. 



I have also examined 1-t Starlings from St. Kilda, mostly in the Roj'al 

 Scottish Museum. Most of them are in moult, and I can only measure four 

 with confidence which have wings from 127-135 mm., while the bills vary as 

 in the Fair Isle specimens, and so does the first primary. I have not seen speci- 

 mens in the full juvenile dress, but the head, neck, and part of the back in a 

 moulting one appear to be dark, as in the intermediate Fair Isle ones. There- 

 fore it seems that here, too, we have not yet a fixed race — possibly for similar 

 reasons as on Fair Isle, i.e. comparatively recent immigration ? 



Sturnus vulgaris faroensis Feilden. 



C'f. p. 44 of Viig. pal. Fauna. 



This form is now admitted by every competent ornithologist. It is resi- 

 dent on the Faeroe Islands. A few stray Starlings obtained on Iceland do not 

 belong to faroensis but to S. v. vulgaris. 



Sturnus vulgaris granti Hart. 



Ct. p. 43 of Yog. pal. Fauna. 



In worn spring and summer plumage the first primary in Starhngs becomes 

 narrower and shorter, therefore the shortness of the first primary is not always 



