BREEDING OF PASTOR ROSEUS IN VERONA. 19 
by another, not less obstinate, between the Rose-coloured Starlings 
themselves. The reason of this was that they had to fight for 
possession of one or other of the hundreds of holes and cavities in 
which the pairs might lodge. The holes being insufficient to 
harbour them all, by far the greater number were compelled to 
occupy the roofs of the houses over half the district,—that is, of 
the part situated between the castle and the church,—and then 
renewing the fight by driving away the Common Starlings and 
Sparrows. 
Here, too, was soon a new cause for astonishment in the 
incredible anxiety and activity with which the Rose-coloured 
Starlings remaining in the castle precincts gave themselves up to 
cleansing the captured holes and fissures. These they very soon 
cleared of every encumbrance by rolling to the foot of the wall 
stones (even of great weight), bits of rock or brick, sticks, straws, 
skulls, and other portions of the skeletons of animals which had 
died there naturally, or had doubtless been the victims of Polecats 
(faine) and Owls. 
The cleaning completed, the work of nest-building began with 
daybreak on the 5th June. Here 1 will remark that the nests 
occupied both the length and breadth of the whole available site, 
and that—roughly composed of small sticks, little branches, straws, 
hay, grasses, and other dry herbs, the whole disposed in a shapeless 
mass—they presented in their midst a limited hollow space to con- 
tain the eggs, and this was irregularly lined with herbaceous fibres, 
leaves, mosses and feathers. 
* * * * * 
It was not until the 17th June that I was able to ascertain 
for certain that eggs were laid in any nest. They were from five 
to six in number, and of an ovato-conic form, with a very brittle 
shell, and of an uniformly white colour, with a slight greenish tint. 
On the 10th July the young were completely covered with 
feathers, and their ultimate development was so rapid, that on the 
14th they were all seen to emigrate with their parents from Villa- 
franca, taking a direct course towards Gazol, Pali, Teze, and Isola 
della Scala, to continue thence, by short journeys towards the 
south, their emigration to other lands. One of the young birds 
killed on the 14th I made a point of having preserved, and presented 
to the museum of this Institute, 
