200 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



But little less spectacular are the great roosts resorted to by the 

 young after the breeding season and b}^ young and old starlings in fall 

 and winter, often with hordes of grackles, red-winged blackbirds, cow- 

 birds, and robins. Early in the season, late in summer and early in 

 fall, enormous numbers roost in trees, and in cattail swamps or other 

 marshes. But, when winter comes, the flocks of starlings seek better 

 protection in or on various buildings in the towns and cities, though 

 many continue to roost in shade trees along the streets as long as the 

 leaves remain on the trees. J^Iany congregate in barns or in church 

 towers in the villages, while others resort to public buildings in the 

 large cities, roosting in the ventilators on the roofs, on ledges under 

 the eaves, on cornices, on the tops of windows or on the capitals of 

 pillars, wherever they can crowd into some slieltered spot. Many 

 starling roosts have been described in print, but only a few can be 

 mentioned here. 



Hicks and Dambach (1935) made some observations on a large 

 roost in an oak thicket on the southward-facing slope of a ravine near 

 Zanesville, Ohio, through the fall and until cold weather drove them 

 out in January : 



The aerial manoeuvres performed before the final roost movements were little 

 short of miraculous. To see more than 30,000 birds flying in unison and in 

 close formation is a truly worth-while sight. Tlie black, moving cloud of 

 starlings took on fantastic shapes as the birds swerved to one side, swooped 

 down, or performed other movements, each bird following the path taken by its 

 predecessor. The manoeuvres were performed so regularly that we gave them 

 names and recognized the same movements repeatedly night after night. At 

 times the moving mass of birds resembled a huge bullet hurtling through space : 

 at other times it consisted of a continuous revolving circle, or resembled a waving 

 flag, a darting fish, a conventional comet, a most spectacular dark sinister- 

 looking waterspout. These manoeuvres took from 45 to GO minutes each night. 

 During this time the starlings actually were on the wing for about 30 minutes, 

 and maintained an average speed of a little more than 30 miles an hour. * * * 



And this exercise was in addition to perhaps 20 to 90 miles of flying by each 

 bird during the day. * * * 



Activity in this roost was apparent at the first sign of daybreak. The birds, 

 in a vociferous garrulous mass, swarmed like an excited cluster of honey-bees 

 through the dense tangle of the thicket until twelve minutes before sunrise. 

 Then, within eight minutes, the whole group took wing, rising in several well- 

 defined waves. Next a few aerial manoeuvres were performed over the roost in 

 mass formation, the groups gradually breaking into a number of small units, 

 each unit taking a definite route, which was found to be the same each day. 



Loefer and Patten (1941) describe an interesting roost in a rocky 

 gorge near Lexington, Ky., as follows : 



At this scenic spot between Fayette and Madison Counties the river has cut 

 through solid rock marking a very narrow valley hedged in by rocky walls and 

 slopes which mark the channel of long ago. * * * Fairly large and closely 

 planted deciduous trees line the bank, and smaller trees, including some cedars, 

 cover the more gentle slope which extends for about a hundred and twenty- 

 five yards from the river bank to the highway. * * * 



