THE STARLING. 289 



and chimneys, are resorted to for building. These birds, it may 

 be remarked, are not generally spread over Ireland, as they are 

 over England in the breeding-season, but are confined to compa- 

 ratively few favourite localities, which are chiefly in pasture dis- 

 tricts Within the memory of old persons, they built annually in 

 the steeple of St. Ann's church, Belfast, and in other places within 

 and about the town, but for a long period ceased to do so. They 

 have within the last few years returned. 



Mr. W. Darragh informs me of three instances of the star- 

 ling's having nests near Belfast of late. Once, in a fine old 

 cherry-tree in an orchard at Ballynafeigh, and twice — in the 

 summers of ]844 and 1845 — building in an ash tree standing 

 singly in a pasture-field at Seymour Hill. The nest was placed in 

 a hole within the tree, and both the aperture and the cavity were 

 so small, that persons enlarged them, not on the bird's account, 

 but on their own, that they might procure the eggs, for which 

 there was such a competition, that they were carried off almost as 

 soon as laid, and the poor birds were not allowed to rear a brood 

 in either year. The species was such a novelty in the district, that 

 its nest was known to every one, and the young birds in such re- 

 quisition, that a brood reared by their legitimate parents would 

 have gone but a short way in supplying the demand. Besides, as 

 every one feared that his neighbour might be the fortunate pos- 

 sessor of the prize, the eggs were abstracted, and placed in the 

 nests of blackbirds and thrushes, of which species each bird- 

 fancier had nests unknown to his neighbours : — but in no instance 

 did the young " come out."* Two nests were known to be built 

 in the town, in the summer of 1848. One was in an aperture 

 at the top of the gable wall of the loftiest house in Wellington 

 Place, a situation taken possession of by the birds at the end of 

 March. The other was placed in a hole in the fifth story of a 

 large occupied flax-mill. It was near the roof, within reach of 



* The same informant likewise mentions, that at a place between Dundalk and 

 Ardee (county of Louth), and near to Fane Valley, there is a small building resembling 

 a dove-cot, erected on the roof of a house for starlings to build in. They frequent it 

 in such numbers for the purpose, that they may be compared to bees flying backward 

 and forward to their hive. He saw them in the breeding season for three or four 

 years ; — his last visit being in 1841. 



VOL. I. U 



