THE STARLING 123 



An additional fact worth noting- about starling roosts is that 

 some of them may continue to be occupied by small parties of 

 adult birds during the breeding season. These are, no doubt, non- 

 breeding birds, occasional flocks of which may be seen in April and 

 May feeding in the fields. I saw one of thirty on May 13th. The 

 existence of these flocks explains the readiness with which, when 

 one of a breeding pair loses its life, the survivor will find a new 

 mate. Darwin cites a case in which no less than thirty-five were 

 shot one after another at the same nest, both males and females, 

 the last pair bringing off the brood. Why these adult birds should 

 not breed is a question that has already been discussed in con- 

 nection with the magpie and jay (vol. i. p. 56). 



Owing to the fact that starlings usually build their nests in ready- 

 made holes in trees, rocks and houses, their gregariousness in the 

 breeding season is limited by the position of their nesting sites. As 

 these are scattered over a wide area, there is a corresponding dis- 

 persal of the birds. But there is good reason to think that, but for 

 the difficulty of obtaining sites near together, the starlings would be, 

 or would rapidly become, gregarious breeding birds. They do some- 

 times form colonies in sand-pits, together with sand-martins, in this 

 case apparently making their own holes, which, in instances noted by 

 Mr. E. Selous, were short and roomy caverns rather than tunnels, and 

 unlikely, therefore, to be enlarged disused nests of sand-martins. In 

 these colonies the starlings were observed, moreover, to display a 

 quality which is a marked characteristic of species e.g. rooks, jack- 

 daws, gannets that breed together, and that is, an habitual weakness 

 for plundering each other's nesting material. This they did with 

 open and shameless indifference. " A bird issuing from a cave that 

 is not his own is flown after and pecked by another, just as he 

 plunges into one that is. The thief soon reappears at the door of 

 his premises, and sings, or talks a song, and the robbed bird is, by 

 this time, sing-talking too. Both are happy all is enjoyment. A 

 bird returning with plunder finds the absent proprietor in his 



