90 
BIRDS OF LEICESTERSHIRE AND RUTLAND. 
One box which was tenanted was not more than ten feet from the ground. 
It has also bred in boxes fixed at the top of my house overlooking the main 
thoroughfare at Aylestone. Several pairs inspected the boxes, and one pair 
eventually took up their residence therein, built, and brought off their young, 
in the summer of 1887. In 1888, they built back and front, quite close to 
both the doorways ; and one splendid male, whilst singing to his partner, elaborated 
a series of beautiful flute-like notes, which, though somewdiat resembling those 
of the Blackbird, were yet much more like those of the Golden Oriole. Now 
and then he would twitter like a Swallow, and, like the remainder of his 
fellows, would sit and sing, inwardly, a sibilant and pleasing strain. Whilst 
getting this ready for the press (autumn, 1888, and Jan., 1889) this bird still 
cheers us with his song, which has even improved in quality since the above 
was written. 
Mr. G. H. Storer informs me that a friend of his possessed a Starling 
which, although untrained, imitated the crowing of the farm-yard Cock to 
such perfection that he frequently set all the roosters around crowing in 
defiance, and appeared to obtain much satisfaction from this trick! (Noted 
also in ‘Transactions Leicester Lit. and Phil. Soc.,’ Jan., 1889, p. 27). 
Jlr. Davenport writes me that, when a boy, he took thirty-two eggs in 
the course of a summer, from a hole in a wall where a pair of Starlings were 
nesting. 
It is subject to much variety. — !\Ir. Davenport records a white one seen 
by him at Skeffington in September, 1878. That varieties will mate with 
normally-plumaged specimens was proved at Kibworth, from whence Mr. INIacaulay 
procured and forwarded to me, on 4th June, 1887, a family party of male, 
female, and three young, taken from a nest built under the eaves of a cottage 
in the village. The young and the male bird were of the normal type, but 
the female was a curious variety. The wings and tail were of a light brownish- 
drab shewing in certain lights somewhat of an isabelline tint, but all the head, 
breast, and back were of a dusky greyish-brown, the ochreous tips of the mantle 
and wing-covert feathers shewing dimly through the all-pervading grey, — not 
at all a pretty bird, and irresistibly reminding one of an ancient and faded 
stuffed specimen, one which had been exposed for a number of years to a 
strong light. I saw the birds when alive, and the contrast between the almost 
black male and the female, which looked nearly white or cream-coloured when 
flying to and from the nest, was very marked. Pinchen told me that his son, 
Robert Pinchen, with other people, repeatedly observed a cream-coloured Starling 
close to the Spinney-hill Park, during the summer of 1887. It had also been 
noticed in a flock the previous autumn. 
In Rutland. — Resident and common. — Mr. Horn informs me that he has 
taken some eggs almost white, and not easily distinguished from those of the 
Green Woodpecker. ]Mr. R. Tryon informed me that, about 1883, he saw a white 
