108 THE STARLINGS 



garbage. The evidence shows that the species occasionally eats wheat, which has 

 been found in the stomachs of specimens shot. They rarely touch oats or barley. 

 (Zoologist, 1910, p. 144.) They undoubtedly display a certain partiality for cherries, 

 and will take raspberries, figs, and sometimes pears (Zool., loc. cit.). I have also 

 seen them pecking at late apples. They eat berries of various kinds with 

 zest, e.g. mountain-ash, yew, elder, etc. (cf. Coward, Fauna of Cheshire, 

 i. p. 228). Gray, in his Birds of the West of Scotland, states that he has 

 seen them not only devour eggs of ground birds, such as larks and yellow- 

 hammers, but also, which may be forgiven them, drag young sparrows out of the 

 nest and devour them at leisure. But any misdeeds they may commit are com- 

 pletely overbalanced by their destruction of insect pests. In severe weather the 

 birds often resort to the shore and feed on small molluscs, and possibly what else 

 they can find. The young are fed by both parents on a variety of food : insects 

 and their larvse, earthworms, small garden snails and brown slugs, spiders, bread, 

 and garbage. (See also p. 131.) In the stomachs both of old and young large 

 quantities of plant remains, for instance grass, are found, [r. B. K.] 



6. Song Period. All the year with a period of silence, or partial silence, 

 during the moult in July- August. Between the breeding seasons the birds sing in 

 flocks as well as alone. [F. B. K.] 



ROSE-COLOURED STARLING [Pastor roseus (Linnaeus). 

 French, martin roselin ; German, Eosenstar ; Italian, storno roseo.~\ 



1. Description. Differs from all other British birds in the strongly con- 

 trasted areas of rose-pink and black. Sexes alike. (PI. 60.) Length 8 ins. (203 

 mm.). The male in spring has the head, neck and fore-breast glossy violet-black, 

 the wings, tail-coverts and tail, and under tail-coverts steel-green, the rest of the 

 plumage rose-pink. The crown feathers are elongated and form an erectile crest. 

 The female is duller than the male and has a shorter crest. After the autumn 

 moult the brilliancy of the plumage is obscured, the feathers having sandy- 

 coloured margins which are gradually lost by abrasion, revealing the beautiful 

 livery of spring and summer. The juvenile dress differs conspicuously from that 

 of the adult in being brown, with darker wings and tail. The chin and throat 

 are white, the rest of the under parts pale brown, mottled on the flanks with 

 darker brown, [w. P. p.] 



2. Distribution. It is difficult to define exactly the breeding limits of this 

 bird, as its nesting appears to be regulated by the presence or absence of the Ortiio- 



