LETTERS 



DO ROOKS OCCASIONALLY BREED IN THEIR FIRST YEAR ? 

 To the Editors of Bkitish Birds. 



Sirs, — ^Having paid some attention to the manner in which the 

 face of the Rook becomes bare, I may state that in the main my 

 observations and specimens confirm Mr. Witherby's conclusions. 

 But, with regard to this species not breeding in the first year, there 

 is evidence that this is not invariably the case. I dissected the bird 

 referred to in Vol. IV., p. 370, as " undoubtedly breeding," and it 

 contained an egg nearly ready for extrusion. 



Again, in the Zoologist for 1888, p. 224, it is recorded that a black- 

 beaked Rook was seen repeatedly carrying sticks and endeavouring 

 to build, but apparently unsuccessfully. Stevenson also, in the 

 Birds of Norfolk, notes that out of six Rooks killed in the act of 

 collecting sticks for nesting purposes, all of which proved to be males, 

 " one exhibited a pure black face, with stout bristles, like yoiuig 

 birds in their first summer." Eric B. Dunlop. 



TrOUTBECK, WnSTDERMERE. 



[The mere act of carrying about nesting-material does not of course 

 prove that the birds were capable of breeding, but it perhaps shows 

 +hat they had some desire to do so, and the comparative sizes of the 

 organs of the males which I gave on page 131 might I think account 

 for such a desire. — H.F.W.] 



DIMINUTION OF STARLINGS IN YORKSHIRE. 



To the Editors of British Birds. 



Sirs, — I do not see any reference in your correspondence columns 

 to the extraordinary diminution in the numbers of breeding 

 Starlings in 1913, which in the East and West Ridings of Yorkshire 

 has been most marked. Not a tenth of the usual number of nests 

 have been occupied, and the birds were gathered into flocks by the 

 third week in May, when they should have been busy feeding young. 

 No reason for this extraordinary diminution in reproductive 

 powers of a bird which up to now has far exceeded the available 

 supply of nesting-sites has been discovered. E. W. Wade. 



North Ferriby, East Yorks., September 28th, 1913. 



