THE STARLING. 



Nests Eggs Food Utility. 



bed the female deposits five or six ggs. Some- 

 times, also, she builds in dove-cotes, under the 

 eaves of houses, and even in holes in the rocks, 

 on the sea coast. She lays four or five eggs, and 

 sits eighteen or twenty days, and the young, 

 which are of a dusky brown colour till they first 

 moult, remain a long time dependent upon their 

 parent for subsistence. This bird usually breeds 

 in May. 



The food upon which starlings principally live, 

 are snails, worms, and the beautiful searabaei that 

 are found in June, upon the flowers, and espe- 

 cially upon the rose. They likewise live upon 

 wheat, rye, millet, hemp-seed, elder-berries, 

 olives, cherries, and grapes ; which latter are 

 said to be the best corrective of the natural 

 bitterness of their flesh. 



Notwithstanding the starlings commit consi- 

 derable depredations on the labours of the hus- 

 bandman, the interest of agriculture requires that 

 they should be preserved, on account of the vast 

 numbers of pernicious insects they consume, 

 which would completely annihilate the hopes of 

 the farmer, if nature had not counteracted their 

 prodigious multiplication by active means of 

 destruction. 



This bird will live seven or eight years, and 

 even more, in a state of domestication. The 

 author of the Sentimental Journey, while consi- 

 dering the horrors of captivity, supposes himself 



