STARLING. 6 1 



[Genus — Sturnella.] 



[Sturnella magna — American Meadow Starling.] 



Norfolk, 1854. 



[Genus — Scolecophagus.] 



[ScoLECOPHAGUS FERRUGiNEus— Rusty Grackle.] 



Cardiff, 1881. 



Family— STURNID.^. 



Genus— STURNUS. 



STERNUS VULGARIS— Starling. 



I can't get out ! I can't get out ! 



— Sterne's Starlhig. 



The byrcles gay, 

 Starling, Cuckoo, or Popynjay. 



Of all the birds whose tuneful throats, 

 Do welcome in the verdant spring, 

 I prefer the Steerling's notes, 

 And think she does most sweetly sing. 



Allan Ramsay. 



The " Stare," as it is commonly called in Herefordshire, is 

 very abundant throughout the county. Great numbers of them 

 must have been destroyed by the severe weather of 1 880-1, since 

 they were very much less numerous during the following summer, but 

 they are increasing again very rapidly. The imposition of the gun 

 license favours the Starlings greatly, and it is well that it does so, for 

 their general usefulness to farmers in particular, and to mankind 

 in general, can no longer be questioned. In a paper on "The 

 Food of Small Birds," pubHshed in the Zoologist for 1863, M. 

 Prevost gives the results drawn from anatomical examinations of 

 the crops of many birds at different months of the year, in order to 

 estimate the benefit, or the injury, rendered by them to mankind. 

 The monthly food of the Starling M. Prevost gives as follows : — 

 "January, worms, grubs of cockchafers, and grubs in dung; February, 

 grubs, snails, and slugs ; March, grubs of cockchafers and snails ; 



