The preceding description will serve to distinguish the Starling from any North American species, although it is subject to considerable variation. A second form, scarcely distinguishable as a species (_S. unicolor_, De la Marmora), of a prevailing black color, without terminal spots, and with the feathers of the under part elongated, is found in Sardinia and Sicily. HABITS. We give a place to the common Starling of Europe in the fauna of North America, as an occasional and rare visitant of Greenland. Only a single instance is on record of its actual capture,—a female taken by Holböll in 1851, and now in the Royal Museum of Copenhagen. The well-known Starling of Europe is handsome in plumage and of graceful shape. It is numerous, as a species, is very generally distributed, and therefore very well known. With many it is a great favorite, and is also familiar as a caged bird. Its sprightly habits, retentive memory, and flexibility of voice, commend it as an interesting and entertaining pet. It has been taught to whistle tunes, and even to imitate the human voice, with facility and correctness. In its natural state it is a very social bird, and lives in flocks the greater part of the year. Mr. Waterton, who was a great admirer of the Starling, sought to induce these birds to frequent his grounds, and with this view made various cavities in the walls of an old tower near his residence. His wishes were gratified, and soon every cavity he had made was taken possession of by a pair, and many more would have been thus domiciled had provision been made for them. A similar instance is on record in Hamburg, where, within a few years, a well-known horticulturist induced nearly two hundred pairs of Starlings to occupy and to breed in wooden boxes put up in his grounds for their accommodation. His plants had been destroyed by the attacks of hosts of subterranean larvæ, and the Starlings were invited in the hope that they would remove this evil, which they did quite effectually. Dr. Beverley Morris gives a very interesting account of a female Starling that he observed building a nest in a hollow tree. The male looked on, but took no part, except to drive away other intrusive birds. The female made on an average three trips a minute, with small twigs and bits of dry grass, taking sometimes three or four at a time. He estimated that in the space of six hours she had taken to her nest not less than a thousand sticks. The Starling is said to select for its nest suitable places in church-steeples, the eaves of houses, and holes in walls, especially of old towers and ruins; occasionally it builds in hollow trees, in cliffs or in high rocks overhanging the sea, and also in dovecotes. The nests are made of slender twigs, straw, roots, and dry grasses. The birds incubate sixteen days. The old birds are devoted to their offspring.