STARLING. 35 



STARLING. 



STARE. COMMON STARLING. COMMON STARE. 

 SOLITARY THRUSH, (THE YOUNG.) 



PLATE XCVI. FIGURE I. 



Sturnus vulgaris, PENNANT. MONTAGU. 



ATIDIFICATION commences about the end of 

 -L i March or the beginning or middle of April. They 

 build in Church-steeples and in hollows and eaves of 

 the walls of houses, castles, spires, towers, or ruins, 

 as also in those of trees, as well as in cliffs and rocky 

 and precipitous places; at times in dove-cotes and 

 pigeon-houses, in caverns too, and under rocks, and 

 even have been known to occupy the holes deserted by 

 rats, more or less fashioned for themselves. Where 

 any or all of these are awanting, the abutment of a 

 bridge, or any suitably high building, is put up with. 

 I have heard of one built in a hole in the top of a 

 gate post, quite, of course, within reach of the hand of 

 any passer by. Another has been known in a small 

 hollow on the ground, and the brood safely hatched, 

 A rabbit-burrow is also sometimes resorted to, and the 

 hole in a tree scooped out by a Woodpecker. In 

 Woburn Park, Bedfordshire, I am informed by Mr. 

 George B. Clark that Starlings have built some dome- 



