204 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



ground, in order to occupy the nest hole. That they sometimes kill 

 the adult flicker in shown by the following observation by Lewis O. 

 Shelley (1935) : 



The first year the Flickers were driven away before the eggs were laid. The 

 next spring, a pair of Starlings desirous of the new nest-hole for their second 

 brood, killed the young Flickers and they, or another pair, threw out the dead 

 birds, and nested. The third year, hearing a great to-do of Starling squawks 

 and whistles, I was in time to see a Starling pursue the female Flicker and 

 strike her at the base of the skull when she alighted at the nest-hole. Examina- 

 tion proved that the victim was killed instantly, the Starling's bill having pierced 

 the skull and brain. Since then several nesting Flickers, presumably killed in 

 tills same manner, have been brought to me. In 1933 I saw a female that was 

 paralyzed from an attack ; she tried several times to climb up the tree and 

 finally fell back and died. 



Kalmbach and Gabrielson (1921) mention a number of occasions 

 on which starlings have attacked other birds, and some on which tliey 

 seemed to get along amicably with their neighbors. "One martin 

 house at Norwalk, Conn., was occupied by a pair of sparrow hawks 

 on one side and three pairs of starlings on the other. At Hadlyme, 

 Conn., a colony of fully 50 pairs of martins conducted unmolested 

 their nesting operations under the close scrutiny of starlings that 

 nested nearby." One of two martin houses at Adelphia, N. J. — 



was occupied by starlings, and when a pair of martins appeared and attempted 

 to take up the other abode a fight occurred. A starling was observed going 

 into the martin house, and after pulling out one of the inmates dragged out 

 the nest material. 



The martin was subsequently attacked whenever it approached and it finally 

 left the premises. ♦ * * xhe single record of starlings attacking a red- 

 headed woodp(?cker comes from Baltimore, jMd., where a combat was observed 

 over a nest cavity in a telephone pole. * * * At Ambler, Pa., two nestling 

 robins were killed by starlings, the victims being dispatched by powerful pecks 

 on the head. 



At East Norwalk, Conn., a starling was seen to peck and break all the eggs 

 in a robin's uost. * * * Single attacks on a Baltimore oriole's nest and the 

 young of a chipping sparrow were reported. * * * At Middletown, R. I., 

 it was found necessary to wage constant warfare on the starlings to keep them 

 from nesting in one pigeon loft, where they appropriated for their own do- 

 mestic affairs the boxes put up for the pigeons. They carried in so much 

 material that they filled the boxes and on one or two occasions dragged it in 

 so rapidly as actually to barricade the setting pigeons, which were entirely 

 unresisting. 



At Norwalk, Conn., a pair of bluebirds started to build nests in 

 three different boxes, one after another, but the starlings removed all 

 the nesting material, and it was not until the bluebirds found a box 

 provided with a 1%-inch opening that they were able to lay a set 

 of eggs. But, in some cases, bluebirds and starlings were noted nest- 

 ing peaceably in close proximity. 



