By: Simon

Simon — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 10:51:47 +0000

Ridiculously late to respond to this, and you probably already have an answer but anyway…I got interested in the stellino, and it seems plausible (although I can’t really prove this) that it is the starling/star-ling/little star=stellino. This would be a folk etymology; starling and star are not actually related words. As for being a bird of great beauty? Well, it has iridescent plumage, and if you lived back in the day and didn’t often see parrots or peacocks (and hadn’t already labelled it as a pest), you might consider the starling a beautiful bird. But the main clue for me is that starling eggs are (quite) frequently found lying on the ground, because starlings practise intraspecific brood parasitism, laying their eggs in the nests of other starlings. When they do this, it is suggested that they lay one and chuck one out so the numbers remain the same, or, that the mother of the parasitised brood recognises and chucks out the foreign egg. Either way there’s a starling egg on the ground, and they’re easily recognisable to the layman, being sky-blue. Obviously the chick does not emerge unharmed…

Comments on: An Italian Bestiary

By: Simon