STARLING 193 



R. A. Johnson (1935) conducted a study on a lot of starling nests 

 in an old barn at Oneonta, N. Y., for the purpose of determining the 

 success of the birds in raising their broods. He says : 



Notes were recorded on the success of seventeen nests. Six of these were 

 early or May nests of 1933 and 1934. Eleven were second or June nests of 1933. 

 All of these second nests came at the time of the beginning of the drought of 

 1933. 



The seventeen nests produced seventy-nine eggs, hatched fifty young, forty of 

 which were reared. It is very interesting liowever to compare the success of 

 the early or May nests with the late or June nests. The sis early nests produced 

 twenty-nine eggs, hatched twenty-six young and fledged twenty-six young. The 

 eleven late or June nests produced fifty eggs, hatched twenty-four young, of 

 which only fourteen were Hedged. During the incubation period for the 

 June nests the severe drought of that summer set in, which was, in my opinion, 

 the main factor in causing the low percentage of success for the second nests. 



Plumages. — The small nestling starling is fairly well covered with 

 long, drab-gray, or grayish-white natal down, longest and darkest on 

 the head, but present on practically all the j)rincipal feather tracts. 

 The Juvenal plumage is fully acquired before the young leave the 

 nest, including considerable development of the flight feathers. In 

 this plumage, the young bird is very plainly colored and entirely un- 

 like the adult. The upperparts, including the wings and tail, are 

 brownish "mouse gray" ; the underparts are only a slightly paler shade 

 of the same color, fading out to whitish on the throat and chin ; the 

 abdomen is streaked with grayish white ; and the wings and tail have 

 narrow buffy edgings. 



The starling is one of the few American birds that have a complete 

 post] u venal molt, which takes place between July and September, 

 depending upon the date of hatching ; for birds of the first brood in 

 New England, this occurs mainly in August. James Lee Peters ( 1928) 

 has published a detailed account of this molt, to which the reader is 

 referred. He says that molt of the body plumage occurs simultane- 

 ously with that of the primaries and tail, beginning with the inner, or 

 first, primary and ending with the outer, or tenth. He has seen this 

 molt jDractically completed by August 19, and in another case, perhaps 

 a bird from a second brood, not until the end of September. The molt 

 begins soon after the wings and tail are fully grown, the first of the 

 glossy green, white-tipped feathers appearing on the flanks, and the 

 last of the juvenal plumage disappearing on the head. 



Dr. Dwight (1900) describes the first winter plumage very well, as 

 follows: "Everywhere bottle or purplish green with metallic reflec- 

 tions, the feathers above with cinnamon terminal spots, smallest on the 

 head, the feathers below with white spots. Wings and tail greenish 

 black edged with cinnamon, the wing quills having a pale terminal spot 

 bordered with black." 



Young and old birds are now much alike, but the cinnamon spots 



