li 



ling as a permanent dweller in our midst. Of this fact he had 

 noticed proofs more and more numerous from year to year ; and 

 having his attention called to it, specially this season, by the 

 domiciliary visit of a pair of the birds who built their nest and 

 reared their brood in the roof of his own conservatory, he was 

 led to ask Mr Eodd what he knew about their adoption of Pen- 

 zance as a summer residence. He also made inquiry as to their 

 change of plumage, having observed that one of his birds was 

 little darker than the back of a thrush, and was without manifest 

 spottiness. Mr. Eodd's answer ran thus — " There has been a 

 gradual approach of the starling to our western districts in the 

 summer, but I have not exactly detected them here yet. The 

 variety of the plumage of the bird is partly sexual, partly 

 seasonal, and partly according to its age. You may always 

 know an adult lird from the colour of the bill, which is yellow ; 

 when not adult it is light Irown. In the summer plumage few 

 spots show themselves in adult birds ; there is probably a partial 

 moult in the spring, and the spots assumed in the autumnal 

 moult then wear off, leaving the colour a dark green, with 

 metallic reflections. These spots are sometimes more or less 

 retained by some birds according to the vigour of their frames. 

 The female is more spotted on the under parts than the male. 

 I forgot to say that starlings, before their first autumnal moult, 

 are uniformly light brown without spots. The spots are assumed 

 at their first moult. "'^' 



Dr. Barham added that the bird he had mentioned as brown 

 and without evident spots was clearly adult, as he observed it 

 carrying food to the nestlings, and heard it several times singing 

 to its mate. The bill was not yellow. These birds, it appears, 

 when they congregate towards winter, roost in large numbers in 

 some plantations near Bodmin, and their " secure hour" is often 

 stolen upon by men with lanthorns, who pick them from, off their 

 perches, and consign them to the pie dish. 



*Mi'. Rodd has since explained that the term during which the first plumage is 

 more or less retained, is occasionally much prolonoed ; and the Rev. C. M. 

 Edward Collins states that starlings have built their nests in gradually increasing 

 numbers about Trewardale for twenty years or more. "Bird beating," he says, 

 is common in that district. 



