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 1844 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 u 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. 
TJ 
