154 
STARLING. 
brownish red. The tail is short, and of twelve feathers, dusky 
in colour, their outer webs more or less glossed with green,, 
and margined with light brownish red; upper tail coverts, 
black, glossed with green, and edged with pale rust-colour; 
under tail coverts, black, bordered with white. Legs and 
toes, brownish red; claws, dusky.' 
The female is rather less brilliant in colour; length, nine 
inches and a quarter; bill, blackish brown; iris, dark brown; 
the spots on the breast are larger than in the male. The 
wings expand to the width of a little over one foot three 
inches. Legs and toes, reddish brown; claws, blackish. 
The young assume the adult plumage after the first moult, 
but are much more spotted, and most extensively and almost 
dazzlingly so, and in a strikingly handsome manner; with 
age the spots gradually become less. The bill is at • first, 
shorter than in the old bird; it is blackish brown with 
paler edges, the upper mandible having a slight notch close 
to the tip, which becomes obsolete in the adult; iris, brown. 
The whole plumage is a dull, uniform, lustreless light greyish 
brown, except the chin, which is much paler, approaching to 
greyish white. In this stage it has been described as a 
separate species, under the name of the Solitary Starling or 
Solitary Thrush. Legs and toes, reddish brown; the claws, 
dusky, are at first shorter than in the old bird. 
An albino variety was shot at Westray, in Orkney, in 
the spring of 1846. These not very unfrequently occur, 
also buff-coloured ones. Mr. Chaffey, of Dodington, Kent, 
has in his possession two of these birds, pure white, shot in 
the Isle of Sheppy, and also another cream-coloured one. 
Mr. Charles Eaton, of Ipswich, writes me word that he has 
another of the last-named variety, shot by him at Branford, 
on the 21st. t>f July, 1852. 
