COMMON STARLING. 
263 
roosts among the rocks on the coast, and so 
accommodates itself to the want of its more usual 
southern roosting places. For a situation for the 
nest various places are chosen. In the stations 
we have mentioned, the rocky caves and fissures 
are chosen, and it is rather an unlooked for medley 
of forms to find the Rock-dove and Cormorant 
nestling with the Starling, in the same great cavity, 
within the distance of a few yards. Mr Macgilli- 
vray also mentions, that he has found their nests 
“ in large winding holes in grassy banks of an 
unfrequented islet, which I conjecture to have 
been originally formed by rats.” Ruined build- 
ings and aged trees are in other parts the most 
favourite stations, and where these are awanting, 
a pigeon-cot, the abutments of a bridge, or any 
large and exalted, not much frequented building, 
is also occupied by them. 
From the difference in the plumage of the 
immature birds, some confusion has arisen, and 
species have been multiplied, while the name of 
solitary thrush being mistakenly applied to the 
young, has caused the introduction into our 
fauna of the genus Petrocincla. The male, in 
adult winter or complete autumnal plumage, is of 
a rich velvet black, splendidly lightened with 
reflections of green, blue, and purple, and having 
each feather tipped with a triangular or star-like 
point of yellowish or reddish white. As the 
breeding season advances, these tips fall off, by 
which the feathers become narrower or more 
hackled, and the tints of the head and neck, and 
