28 THE ROSE-COLOURED STARLING. 



preceding year. They had occupied a pile of 

 rough building-stone, most of which was, un- 

 fortunately, removed during the following winter. 

 A small heap near a cottage still remained, and I 

 was informed by the peasant who lived there that 

 it had been full of nests. After removing a few 

 stones from the top I soon came upon the old 

 nests. They were more carefully made than those 

 of the Starling, and might easily have been 

 mistaken for nests of the Ring-Ouzel ; they were 

 chiefly composed of dry grass, but iji several of 

 them a few feathers were interwoven." 



" Mr. Barkley, in his ' Bulgaria before the 

 War,' describes two similar breeding-places 

 between Rustchuk and Varna, where thousands 

 took possession of a mound of broken stone and 

 rock thrown out of a cutting on the railway. In 

 several parts of the Dobrudscha, I met German 

 emigrants from Bessarabia who told me that the 

 Rose-coloured Starling not unfrequently bred in 

 thousands in the peasants' gardens, which are 

 surrounded by rough stone walls, in the holes of 

 which the nests are made. These birds also 

 often breed between Tchernavoda and Kustendji ; 

 but I had the misfortune to drop upon a blank 



