132 THE STARLINGS 



third bird was observed to disappear when the nest was completed. 

 The sex of the third was not ascertained except in one case, when 

 it was stated to be female. 1 Similar facts are reported of rooks, 

 martins, and other species. It may be that the third bird is one 

 of the young of the previous year, for it is difficult to suppose that 

 the presence of a stranger would be tolerated. The young very 

 probably return each spring to the nest in which they were born. 

 If they return paired and show a disposition to lay claim to the 

 site, no doubt they are opposed by their parents. But a single 

 unpaired young bird might very well be allowed to remain. 



On leaving the nest the young are led afield. They may at 

 first be fed on the ground, a lawn, or field, close to the tree in 

 which is the nest, and to the tree they return during the heat of 

 the day and at night. This was the case with a family born in a tree 

 at the end of my garden. Another family born in a hole of the thatch 

 of my roof left it for good. As soon as the young were fledged I saw 

 no more of them. This may have been due to the fact that I had kept 

 them under observation, that the parents had been aware of the same, 

 and had seized the earliest opportunity of removing their offspring 

 out of my reach. It has been stated by a German writer that starlings 

 only stay for one or one and a half days in their breeding-place after 

 the young are fledged, and that they then go miles away, and do not 

 return. From this it is argued that damage done by the species in 

 orchards is not to be charged to the home-bred birds, but to autumn 

 visitors. To fix the period at which the former remain at the nesting- 

 place to one or one and a half days is, I think, to be over-precise. 

 Good evidence, however, is given that, in some places at least, mis- 

 chief in orchards is not done by the home birds. A thousand breed 

 annually in nesting-boxes in a wood of Baron von Berlepsch in 

 Thuringia, yet the immediately adjoining large cherry orchards have 

 not suffered. The birds leave before the cherries are ripe. In 

 another district where the starlings do not appear to breed, the 



1 Zoologist, 1895, p. 307 (Oxley Grabham) ; Field, 1888, vol. Ixxi. pp. 547, 590. 



