STARLING 191 



venient crannies. In 1942 I saw a starling drive away a flicker from 

 its new nest in a large sycamore stub and appropriate it for its own 

 use ; on the other side of the stub, about 3 feet away, was a saw-whet 

 owl's nest with a brood of young. One of F. W. Braund's (MS.) 

 nests was 10 feet below an occupied sparrow hawk's nest. 



As the nests are built in cavities, there is no necessity for building 

 a well-made and compact nest. The cavity is loosely filled with a 

 mass of material in sufficient quantity to fill the space up to within 

 a few inches of the entrance. This material consists mainly of coarse 

 and fine grasses and straws, with sometimes rootlets, small twigs, corn 

 husks, a few green leaves mixed in, and occasionally bits of cloth, 

 paper, string or other trash; the lining may consist of finer pieces 

 of grass, or small or large amounts of poultry feathers; the latter 

 are often mixed into the body of the nest. The size of the nest de- 

 pends on the size of the cavity, but the inner cup is usually about 3 

 inches in diameter. 



Eggs. — The starling usually lays four or five eggs, often six, rarely 

 seven, and as many as eight have been recorded. These are mainly 

 ovate to elliptical-ovate and have a slight gloss. The color is very 

 pale bluish or greenish white, often nearly white. W. A. Smith tells 

 me that he has a set in his collection in which the eggs "are a pure, 

 pearly white, without a trace of blue color ; they were collected from 

 the nest of a partially albino starling." I have no record of any 

 spotted eggs. Bernard W. Tucker sends me the measurements of 

 100 British eggs; they average 30.2 by 21.2 millimeters; the eggs 

 showing the four extremes measure 34.9 by 21.0, 34.1 by 22.4, and 

 27.2 by 19.8 millimeters. 



The measurements of 50 American eggs are somewhat different ; they 

 average 29.2 by 21.1 millimeters ; the eggs showing the four extremes 

 measure 31.4 by 21.4, 30.5 by 22.5, 26.9 by 20.0, and 27.9 by 19.8 milli- 

 meters. 



Young. — The period of incubation is variously reported as 11 to 

 14 days, but most authorities agree on the latter figure. The duties 

 of incubation are shared by both sexes. The young are said to remain 

 in the nest until they are fully fledged, or for a period of 2 to 3 weeks ; 

 they can then fly well ; this protracted nest life in a closed nest tends 

 to reduce the mortality in the young. The total nesting cycle, nest- 

 building, incubation, and nest life of the young is therefore about 

 40 days. 



Kalmbach and Gabrielson (1921) write: 



Nestling starlings are fed by the parents largely on insects. For the first 

 week both parents take part in the feeding operations, but in several nests 

 that were under observation the female was left to do all the work during the 

 latter part of the nestling period. "When 3 or 4 days old the young are very 

 noisy and give the feeding call in lusty chorus in response to almost any sound. 



