198 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Many ants in the winged stage are captured by starlings in their aerial evolu- 

 tions, some are picked up on the ground, and others are secured from the branches 

 of trees. On September 5 a number of juvenile starlings were noted diligently 

 searching for and picking up food from the upper branches of a spruce. To 

 some extent their actions imitated those of chickadees or warblers, though 

 they were not so sprightly. One of these birds was collected and its stomach 

 found to be filled with ants. 



All the above account of the food and feeding habits of the starling 

 has been condensed from the extensive report by Kalmbach and Ga- 

 brielson (1921), which leaves little more to be said. Doubtless many 

 other kinds of insects, small animals, fruits, and berries are eaten 

 that are not mentioned above, and the list will be added to as the 

 bird extends its range into other types of country, and as more ob- 

 servers are watching them. For instance, E. A. Mcllhenny (1936) 

 saw them feeding, on Avery Island, La., upon the berries of the cas- 

 sena, hackberry, camphor, and chinaberry trees and upon other berry- 

 bearing trees, shrubs, and vines, flocking in countless numbers with 

 robins and cedar waxwings. 



Mr. Forbush (1927) says: "It takes practically all grains, including 

 corn, and digs up the seed in planted or sowed fields. It takes the 

 young sprouts of such garden vegetables as beans, peas, lettuce, onions, 

 radishes, beets, carrots, muskmelons, squashes and tomatoes and young 

 flowering plants as well. * * * jj.^ pastures it follows the cattle or 

 sheep, catching the insects that the animals stir up, or actually alight- 

 ing on their backs in search of ticks or other insects." See, also, a 

 paper by Clarence Cottam (1944). 



Short-grass fields, pastures, or lawns are favorite feeding places, 

 where the ground is easily reached ; they do not like to feed in long 

 grass. On my lawn in the center of the city, I can see from a few 

 to many starlings almost any day when the ground is bare, winter or 

 summer, zigzagging over the lawn and probing into the ground. I 

 do not want to shoot them to learn what they are eating, for I 

 know that they are feeding on enemies of the grass, perhaps the larvae 

 or pupae of the Japanese beetle. My flowering crabapple trees fruit 

 profusely nearly every year; and before the tiny apples are ripe the 

 starlings and some robins flock to them day after day, until the trees 

 are entirely stripped of their fruit ; and for a long time after that, they 

 may be seen on the ground under them, picking up the fallen apples. 



For a further study of the economic status of the starling, the 

 reader is referred to Mr. Forbush's (1927) extensive remarks on the 

 subject and to E. K. Kalmbach's (1922) discussion of the food habits 

 of the species in England as compared w^ith those of this bird in 

 America, which illustrates what can happen to change its status when 

 it becomes too numerous. Wliereas in moderate numbers it may be a 

 very useful bird, it may increase to such an extent as to become very 

 detrimental. 



