,•* 



NOVITATES ZOOLOGICAE, 



Vol. XXV. NOVEMBER 1918. No. n. 



NOTES ON STARLINGS. 

 By ERNST HARTERT, Ph.D. 



npHE Starlings are one of the most difficult genera of Passeres with regard 

 -J- to their subspecies. Some have a very wide distribution and are enormous 

 migrants, while others are fairly local and resident, and their plumage varies 

 very much according to season and age. As in many other genera a great stride 

 was made by Sharpe (1888-1890) when he wrote their account for the Cat. £. 

 Brit. Mus. (vol. xiii.), though Hume had already given up the wild idea of Sturnns 

 unicolor in India and separated humii (under the preoccupied name nitens), 

 nobilior, and minor. But Sharpe's account was somewhat confused, because 

 he redescribed poltaratskyi as menzhieri, recognizing both, and failed to separate 

 nobilior Hume, most of his poltaratskyi being, in fact, nobilior. Sharpe also 

 badly understood purpurascens, and so did I and everybody else, until Tschusi 

 recognized graecus in 1905, and Buturlin and Harms balcanicus in 1909. Sharpe 

 wrote fuUy on West- European Starhngs with more or less purple on head and 

 flanks, and he believed that this coloration was " the result of interbreeding " 

 with eastern Starhngs — from Siberia — which had recently more regularly 

 migrated westwards in the autumn. This theory fascinated me greatly when 

 I was reading it, and I have paid a good deal of attention to it for many years, 

 but I cannot in the least confirm it. I am convinced that Siberian Starlings 

 wander southwards, to India, and that none ever touch Western Europe. 

 The Starhngs with more or less purple on the head which are found in England, 

 etc., are just as good natives as any others, only they vary, and there is ever}' 

 gradation from a perfectly green head to one which is exactly like that of the 

 East-Russian form, which I think must be called sophiae, though never like a 

 typical poltaratskyi. 



In 1896, Annuaire Mus. Zool. St. Petersbonrg, p. 129, Bianchi, while describ- 

 ing " Sturnns sophiae " gave a review of all Starlings in the form of a " key," 

 in Russian ; fortunately a translation appeared in Orn. Monatsber. 1897, 

 pp. 165-169. This review is entirely based on Sharpe's work, and, except for the 

 introduction of sophiae and the use of the correct name " humii " for wliat Sharpe 

 called indicus, there are no alterations. 



In 1903 appeared the first part of my Vogel d. pal. Fauna, which contained 

 a review of the Starlings. My attempt could not be " final," of course, but it 

 was, I might say without presumption, a sUght advance on Sharpe's treatise. 



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