228 STARLING, 
birds have, as a rule, large and particularly broad beaks. In Iceland 
a solitary specimen was obtained in December 1878, and as long ago 
as 1851, Holbdll procured one in Greenland. In Norway the species 
occurs as high as Tromsé, but eastward we find its northern exten- 
sion gradually diminishing, until in the Urals and across Siberia 
it does not exceed 57° N. lat. Throughout Europe our Starling is, 
with few exceptions, generally distributed, and breeds as far south 
as the central provinces of Italy; but throughout the greater part 
of the Mediterranean basin it is a visitor—often in vast numbers— 
during the cold season, when it reaches the Canaries. In the 
Spanish Peninsula, Southern Italy, Sicily, Sardinia &c., the bird 
found in summer is the unspotted S. wnicolor; while from Asia 
Minor to the Altai range and North-western India the representa- 
tives are S. purpurascens and other closely-allied species. 
The nest is usually built in some hole in a tree, cliff, bank, or 
wall; also (as many persons know to their cost) in chimneys, water- 
pipes, and under eaves ; more often than generally known it is open 
to the sky in a fir or other tree; while in places where suitable 
timber is wanting, holes in peat-stacks and even in the turf itself, 
heaps of stones for mending roads, rabbit-burrows &c., are selected. 
A large untidy mass of dry grass or straw, sometimes with a little 
moss, wool and a few feathers for lining, forms a receptacle for the 
4-7 pale blue eggs, which measure about 1°2 by ‘85 in. When 
successively removed, as many as forty eggs have been obtained 
from the same nest in the season. The Starling feeds principally 
upon worms, slugs, small molluscs, insects and their larvee; it also 
eats voles, the young and eggs of other birds, cultivated fruit and 
wild berries. Its song, imitative powers, habit of congregating in 
large flocks at roosting time, and aerial evolutions have been 
described at length elsewhere. 
In summer, the adult male has almost the whole plumage glossy 
black, with rich metallic purple and green reflections ; the feathers 
of the upper parts being tipped with triangular buff-coloured spots ; 
quills and tail-feathers dark brown, with buffish margins; bill 
lemon-yellow; legs and feet reddish-brown. After the autumn 
moult the feathers of the upper parts are deeply margined with 
buff, and those of the under parts are tipped with white. Length 
8-6 in.; wing 52 in. The plumage of the female is less brilliant 
and the terminal spots are larger. Until autumn the young bird 
is uniform greyish-brown above, clouded with white below ; in which 
plumage it is the “Solitary Thrush” of Montagu and others. 
