152 



The Bird 



deposited their eggs. For hundreds of yards every thorny 

 bush is packed full of cup-shaped nests, even the spaces 

 between the nests being often filled up with sticks or 

 rubbish, through which narrow passages are left for the 

 ingress and egress of the birds. Many starlings that can 

 find no room in the bushes build on the ground, or under 



Fig. 118. — Brown Pelicans diving for fish. (.Sanborn, photographer. Courtesy 

 N. Y. Zoological Society.) 



stones, or in holes, and these unfortunates, together with 

 their eggs or 3'oung, ultimately become the victims of 

 the smaller carnivorous mammals or of snakes. It fre- 

 quently happens also that either the young locusts are 

 hatched in insufficient numbers or that they migrate before 

 the young starlings are fledged. In either case large 

 numbers of birds perish of hunger, the majority of the 



