by another, not less obstinate, between the Rose-coloured Starlings themselves. The reason of this was that they had to fight for possession of one or other of the hundreds of holes and cavities in which the pairs might lodge. The holes being insufficient to harbour them all, by far the greater number were compelled to occupy the roofs of the houses over half the district,—that is, of the part situated between the castle and the church,—and then renewing the fight by driving away the Common Starlings and Sparrows.
Here, too, was soon a new cause for astonishment in the incredible anxiety and activity with which the Rose-coloured Starlings remaining in the castle precincts gave themselves up to cleansing the captured holes and fissures. These they very soon cleared of every encumbrance by rolling to the foot of the wall stones (even of great weight), bits of rock or brick, sticks, straws, skulls, and other portions of the skeletons of animals which had died there naturally, or had doubtless been the victims of Polecats (faine) and Owls.
The cleaning completed, the work of nest-building began with daybreak on the 5th June. Here I will remark that the nests occupied both the length and breadth of the whole available site, and that—roughly composed of small sticks, little branches, straws, hay, grasses, and other dry herbs, the whole disposed in a shapeless mass—they presented in their midst a limited hollow space to contain the eggs, and this was irregularly lined with herbaceous fibres, leaves, mosses and feathers.
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It was not until the 17th June that I was able to ascertain for certain that eggs were laid in any nest. They were from five to six in number, and of an ovato-conic form, with a very brittle shell, and of an uniformly white colour, with a slight greenish tint.
On the 10th July the young were completely covered with feathers, and their ultimate development was so rapid, that on the 14th they were all seen to emigrate with their parents from Villafranca, taking a direct course towards Gazòl, Palù, Teze, and Isola della Scala, to continue thence, by short journeys towards the south, their emigration to other lands. One of the young birds killed on the 14th I made a point of having preserved, and presented to the museum of this Institute,
