Sturnus vulgaris, Linn.
Purple-headed race, Autumn plumage and Young assuming spotted plumage.
captivity are famous, but the fact of their exercise in a
wild state is perhaps not so widely known. I find in
my note-books that at and about our home in Northamptonshire
I have frequently been deceived by the
Starling’s exact imitation of the cry of the Kestrel, the
chatter of the Fieldfare, and the whistling of the Alpine
Chough and Golden Plover. The great majority of the
Starlings that breed and are bred in our county usually
join the migratory flights that pass southwards in late
October or November, but a considerable number
remain with us throughout the cold weather, and in a
mild winter we do not notice much diminution in the
number of these birds, although I have no doubt that
the gaps caused in our home forces are constantly filled
up by migrants from the north. With regard to the
accompanying Plates, I may say that the purple-headed
race of Starling, of which Mr. Keuleman’s figure is a
most excellent and certainly by no means over-coloured
representation, usually appears in England on the
autumnal migration; I have seen but few specimens of
this race, but amongst them one or two in which the
purple colour extended to the sides of the head behind
and below the eyes. The young bird represented in the
background of this Plate is of the typical British form.
In those parts of Europe and North Africa that border
the Mediterranean our bird is a winter visitor, but we
found it breeding in Central Spain; in the south of that
country, and various localities in the Mediterranean, the
resident Starling is the very beautiful Sturnus unicolcr,
a species that has not yet obtained any satisfactory
English name.