■206 KEPOET— 1891. 



long resident in the "West of England, that there starlings 

 habitually eat small fruit, and the observation is hardly likely 

 to be limited in its application. Several correspondents in 

 Otago and Southland report these birds as eating poisoned 

 grain. The habit of eating grain at all is not common to 

 starlings, and may be due to their own vast numbers and the 

 consequent great reduction in insect-life. 



A. E. Wallace, in "Darwinism" (2nd ed.,p. 76), has quoted 

 from an article in Nature (vol. xxxi., p. 533) an observation 

 made by Mr. Burton, formerly employed in the Colonial 

 Museum, Wellington, regarding the nesting-habits of certain 

 young chaffinches in New Zealand. The following is a quota- 

 tion from the original paper : "The nest is evidently built in 

 the fork of a branch, and shows very little of that neatness of 

 fabrication for which this bird is noted in England. The 

 materials with which it is made seem very different, too. The 

 cup of the nest is small, loosely put together, apparently lined 

 with feathers, and the walls of the structure are prolonged for 

 about 18in., and hang loosely down the side of the supporting 

 branch. The whole structure bears some resemblance to the 

 nests of the hangnests (Isteridse), with the exception that the 

 cavity containing the eggs is situated on tlie top. Clearly, 

 these New Zealand chaffinches were at a loss for a design when 

 fabricating their nest. They had no standard to work by, no 

 nests of their own kind to copy, no older birds to give them 

 any instruction, and the result is the abnormal structure I 

 have described." While this change in the mode of nest-build- 

 ing is one very likely to occur, especially as the materials used 

 are here often necessarily different from those obtainable in 

 Britain, I have not myself been able to note any alteration. 

 Our thrushes always plaster the inside of the nest with mud, 

 as they do in Europe ; the chaffinch still commonly makes its 

 nest of moss, neat and compactly arranged, and lined with 

 wool, hair, or feathers ; while the goldfinch builds the neatest of 

 cuplike structures, just as its forebears did in England. 



If the colours of birds' eggs are, as suggested by Wallace," 

 adaptive and protective, then in a country like this, where the 

 enemies of the birds are so few in number, w'e might anticipate 

 that the protective colouring might tend to disappear. I was 

 led to believe that this was actually taking place, and have 

 accordingly made arrangements with more than one of the 

 County Councils in Otago — which purchase large numbers of 

 eggs of sparrows, linnets, greenfinches, &c. — to have extensive 

 series of these handed over to me for examination and com- 

 parison. From those already examined, however, I cannot 

 find that any alteration is taking place, unless it be in the case 



* " Darwinism," 2nd ed., p. 212. 



