J 32 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. 



Family S TURNID&. 



THE STARLING. 



Sturnus vulgaris, LINN. 



GENERALLY distributed over the greater part of Europe, breeding as far to 

 the south as Northern Italy. The European birds which migrate, pass the 

 winter in the south of France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, Northern Africa, and 

 Palestine. The Asiatic birds breed in Southern Siberia, Persia, Turkestan, and 

 eastward to the Amur : they winter in India, passing through Mongolia on 

 migration. 



In Great Britain the Starling is partially resident and generally distributed 

 throughout Great Britain and Ireland, although in the latter island it is rather 

 local in the breeding-season, and in Cornwall and Wales it is somewhat rare at 

 that season. In Scotland, where it used to be by no means abundant, excepting 

 in some of the islands, it is now very common in nearly every county. 



The adult male in breeding-plumage is glossy black, brightly shot with metallic 

 green, rosy violet, and Prussian blue, the rosy and purplish tints being usually 

 most prevalent on the head, nape, mantle, and breast ; the bluer feathers varying 

 in certain lights to Prussian green : the feathers of the upper surface, excepting 

 the head and fore-neck, tipped with dead gold, or sandy buff; flights and tail- 

 feathers dark smoky-brown, bordered with black, and edged with sandy-buff; thighs 

 and under tail-coverts- blackish, the latter with broad buff margins : bill lemon- 

 yellow ; feet reddish-brown ; iris hazel. The female is less metallic than the male 

 and has larger buff tips to the feathers, the under surface of the body being more 

 or less spotted throughout the year ; the bill is also blackish towards the tip. 



After the autumn moult all the feathers of the upper parts are broadly tipped 

 with sandy-buff; the wing- feathers are greyer; and the sides of the face and under 

 surface are more or less conspicuously spotted with white : * the bill also becomes 

 partly, or altogether, dark brown. The young are greyish brown, the quill and 

 tail-feathers margined with pale brown, and the feathers of the under parts with 

 whitish margins. 



* A bird which I had a few years ago used to have these white spots on the under parts so large that 

 many of them ran together into patches giving it the appearance of having faced a snow-storm. 



