286 STUHNIDiE. 



arrives during the day, it occasionally does so, apparently, from 

 having flown a greater distance than the earlier comers, and 

 found rest and food to be desirable before proceeding farther. 

 The number of birds that come in this course is not very great. 

 The average of five or six flocks seen in a morning perhaps consisted 

 of 250 individuals ; the greatest number ever seen in one day 

 probably amounted to 1500 ; and those altogether seen through- 

 out the migratory period may be estimated at about 15,000. Of 

 my three informants, two lived in the district over which the star- 

 lings flew, and consequently had daily opportunities of seeing 

 them in their season. One has indeed done so for the last half- 

 century, and the other was in the habit of going to the place every 

 morning, in the hope that the flocks would pass over within shot, 

 which they often did. In only one instance, did any of these per- 

 sons see starlings return this way in spring, when, on the 1 3th of 

 March, a flock appeared passing north-eastward, in the direction 

 whence they come in autumn : — on the 23rd of that month, a 

 flock, consisting of sixty, was once observed by myself, returning 

 by this course. In the middle of March, flocks of starlings have 

 occurred to me in unusual localities, and were supposed to be 

 moving northward on migration. During the first week of 

 April, 1837, large flocks were seen at "unaccustomed places," in 

 Down and Antrim, having doubtless been kept from crossing the 

 channel, by the prevalence of the north-east wind and very cold 

 weather. 



The autumnal flights of these birds can be traced as coming 

 from Scotland. Capt. Payrer, E.N., in a letter dated Portpatrick, 

 October the 23rd, 1831, and published in the Proceedings of the 

 Zoological Society of London, remarks, that " very large flocks of 

 starlings have arrived within the last few days. They start before 

 sunrise and steer to the southward." I have had circumstantial 

 evidence of tins fact myself, as some years ago, when shooting at 

 the latter end of October, about Ballantrae, in Ayrshire, flocks of 

 these birds were numerous, where, in a subsequent season, from the 

 12th of August to the middle of September, very few individuals 

 only, which built in the neighbourhood, could be observed. 



