368 IS THE STARLING DOUBLE-BROODED ? 



and bring off the young, but these occasions must be considered 

 quite exceptional. I have no particular facts to prove that the same 

 pair of Starlings rear a second brood in this way, except that I have 

 sometimes noticed the old birds flying to a nest and feeding their 

 young late in the summer, long after the bulk have departed. — 

 John Cordeaux, Great Cotes, Ulceby, Lines. 



According to my observations, the Starling is not, as a rule, 

 double-brooded, but is occasionally so, as I have proved to my 

 satisfaction this spring, a nest at the corner of our house having 

 been occupied twice, and two lots of young, both of which got 

 away, being reared therein. 



In some of the old quarries near here, I have several times 

 known two different sets of young come from the same hole, but 

 whether they were both the progeny of the same parent birds I am 

 unable to say. 



Starlings have increased with astonishing rapidity in this district 

 during the past few years, so that where we formerly had hundreds, 

 I might safely say we now have thousands. 



At the present time (August) there is hardly a Starling left in the 

 town, they, like the sparrows at harvest time, having betaken them- 

 selves to the fields ; my mind's eye rests on one field where a good 

 deal of fish-refuse is deposited ; here the stone walls and bushes are 

 literally white with the droppings of the large numbers of birds, old 

 and young, which frequent the place. 



I have several times found, in this district, Starlings' nests 

 containing nine and ten eggs, and on one occasion fifteen, the latter 

 being built in the corner of an out-house, in Haverah Park. No doubt 

 the scarcity of nesting-places had caused two birds to use the same 

 hole and nest. — Riley Fortune, Harrogate, August 9th, 1889. 



I have had five nests of the Starling under close observation this 

 year. The birds commenced building early in April ; on the 8th of 

 May two nests contained young birds and the others eggs. The 

 earliest brood left the nest on the 5th of June, and on the 18th of 

 that month all the nests were tenantless. Since that date, except for 

 an occasional peep, not a bird has been near the nests. About the 

 10th of June one of the young birds, when half- fledged, had the 

 misfortune to fall from its nest. My little boy, who found the 

 nestling, was not tall enough to replace it, so he carefully deposited 

 it in another Starling's nest, about fifty yards away, from which the 

 young had already flown. To our surprise it was carefully tended, 



Naturalist, 



