236 



BIRDS OF AMERICA 



shaped spots, growing gradually larger toward the rear, 

 the under tail-coverts broadly margined with brownish- 

 white; primaries, inner quills, and tail with a central 

 area of brownish-gray, bounded by a submarginal border 

 of dull black; bill, ycllozcisli, dusky in ivinter; iris, 

 brown. 

 Nest and Eggs. — Nest ; Placed in tree cavities. 



eaves of houses, church steeples, or any location that 

 takes its fancy; made of twigs, grasses, leaves, paper, 

 straw, and lined with fine grass. Eggs : 4 to 6, plain 

 pale greenish or bluish-white. 



Distribution. — Western and central Europe ; acci- 

 dental in Greenland ; introduced into and partly 

 naturalized in the eastern United States. 



The Starling may be recognized at a distance 

 by its general appearance and manner of flight. 

 It is about the size of the Red-winged Blackbird, 

 but has a very short tail. It is dark or dusky 

 in color, and during the breeding season its bill 

 is bright yellow. Those who see it for the first 

 time usually describe it as a Blackbird with a 

 yellow bill. In flight it flutters like a Meadow- 

 lark, but seldom sails as much as does the Lark. 



In Europe, it is one of the most abundant 

 birds. It is conceded there that the benefits it con- 

 fers on the farmer far exceed the harm that it 

 does by attacks on fruit or crops ; nevertheless, 

 there are many instances on record where the 

 Starling has become a pest to the farmer. The 

 habit of collecting in enormous flocks is the great 

 element of danger. When a great number of 

 any species having grain-eating or fruit-eating 

 propensities is collected in one locality they are 

 capable of doing great harm in a very short time. 

 Such flights, however, are often productive of 

 good. 



The forest authorities in Bavaria, during an 

 invasion of the spruce moth or " nun " in 

 1889-91, noted great flights of Starlings, which 

 were credibly estimated to contain as many as 

 ten thousand in a flock, all busy feeding on the 

 caterpillars and pupae of this moth. The attrac- 

 tion of Starlings to such centers was so great 

 that market gardeners seriously felt their absence 

 in distant parts of the region. 



Miss Gertrude Whiting of New York City 

 writes me that in Switzerland enormous flocks 

 of Starlings come down like black clouds on the 

 vineyards. In ten or fifteen minutes they pluck 

 the fruit absolutely clean, and the cultivator is 

 robbed of his year's crop. In the south of 

 France Starlings are said to be' similarly destruc- 

 tive to the olive crop. This indicates what would 

 happen in America were the Starlings to become 

 abnormally numerous. 



It is of particular interest to learn what we can 

 of the nature of the Starling in its own country 

 in its relations to other birds. In Europe the 

 Starling is known to eat the eggs and the newly 

 hatched young of Sparrows, but this habit does 

 not seem to have been generally noted. Mr. 



Clinton G. Abbott, who is very familiar with the 

 bird in Europe, writes me that he considers its 

 pugnacious nature to be by far the most serious 

 objection to the Starling, and that no birds which 

 nest in holes can have any peace at all until all 

 the Starlings are satisfied. 



As undesirable qualities are often accentuated 

 when a bird is introduced into a new country, we 

 cannot view the introduction of the Starling 

 without some a[)prehension. When introduced 

 into New Zealand it became a very destructive 

 pest, and no one can tell what may be the result 

 of its acclimatization here. Since the sttccessful 

 introduction of the Starling in America the Bu- 

 reau of Biological Survey of the United States 

 Department of Agriculture has been given 

 authority to regulate the importation of foreign 

 mammals and birds into this country, and in the 

 future there is very little likelihood that the zeal 

 of misguided persons who wish to import for- 

 eign species will have such results as followed 

 the introduction of the House Sparrow. 



Probably we shall never know how many at- 

 tempts have been made to introduce the Starling 

 into this country. I have learned of several. 

 But the introductions undertaken by Mr. Eugene 

 Scheifflin at Central Park, New York City, are 

 credited as the first to be successful. The first 

 of his importations numbered eighty birds, which 

 were liberated on March 6, 1890, and forty more 

 were released on April 25, 1891. Some of these 

 birds remained in the park or its vicinity and 

 bred there, but in 1891, twenty appeared on 

 Staten Island, and in 1896 they had increased 

 their numbers and had extended to Brooklyn. 

 In 1898, according to Dr. T. S. Palmer of the 

 Biological Survey, the species had obtained a 

 strong foothold in the neighborhood of New 

 York City ; it had reached Stamford, Connecti- 

 cut, and Plainfield, New Jersey. One hundred 

 birds were liberated near Springfield, Massachu- 

 setts, in 1897, but Air. Robert O. Alorris of 

 Springfield states his belief that they did not 

 survive the following winter. It may be possible 

 that they went south, but not one was reported 

 from Springfield again until the year 1908. In 

 the meantime the species had spread over the 



