208 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



quently than formerly. It seems clear that individual starlings learn 

 their imitations quite as much from one another as from the original 

 authors of the notes and that fashion plays a large part in the 

 choice. * * * 



"In feeding young in a hole in an apple tree, in the absence of myself 

 and two lurking cats, a pair of starlings used a long-drawn, low- 

 pitched, grating note and a rapidly repeated note resembling the call 

 note of the downy woodpecker. Both notes were once given by a bird 

 with insects in its bill." 



Mr. Forbush (1927) "adds to its repertory, notes, songs or calls of 

 the Wood Thrush, Robin, Bluebird, Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, 

 White-breasted Nuthatch, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Catbird, House 

 Wren, Carolina Wren, Chestnut-sided Warbler, Barn Swallow, Pur- 

 ple Martin, Scarlet Tanager, Field Sparrow, English Sparrow, Cross- 

 bill, Goldfinch, Slate-Colored Junco, Meadowlark, Bronzed Crackle, 

 Baltimore Oriole, Red-winged Blackbird, Cowbird, Crow, Blue Jay, 

 Redheaded Woodpecker, Kingfisher, Wood Pewee, Phoebe, Red-eyed 

 Towhee, Red-shouldered Hawk, Bob- white, Guinea Fowl and Killdeer, 

 and rather imperfect imitations of the calls of both species of Cuckoo. 

 The imitations of some performers are excellent, some of those of 

 others are less so, but all are recognizable, even to the barking of a 

 dog or the mewing of a cat." 



Various other observers have listed the following additional birds 

 as imitated by the starling: Herring gull, sora rail, whippoorwill, 

 nighthawk, chimney swift, solitary sandpiper, greater yellowlegs, 

 hairy and downy woodpeckers, yellow-bellied sapsucker, sparrow 

 hawk, mockingbird, brown thrasher, horned lark, myrtle warbler, sum- 

 mer tanager, purple finch, white-throated sparrow, and cardinal. 



The above are impressive lists and, if accurate and reliable, would 

 seem to place the starling in the front rank of mocking birds, rivaling 

 our famous mockingbird, which it is said to mock. Many of these 

 notes are quite easily recognized, but some others not so, and it would 

 seem to one whose ears are not sharply attuned to the niceties of bird 

 music that some observers have stretched their imaginations. How- 

 ever, the starling in England is said to be able to imitate almost any- 

 thing and in captivity can be taught to whistle tunes and even articu- 

 late words. 



The power of mimicry is not shared equally by all individual star- 

 lings ; many of them never indulge in the habit ; some do much more 

 than others. My collaborator, Dr. Winsor M. Tyler (1933), a man 

 with the keenest and most discriminating ears, listened for nine years 

 for evidence of mimicry and heard only the notes of the cowbird im- 

 itated, perhaps half a dozen times in all. He was skeptical about the 

 bird's ability as a mimic, until one day he heard "in ten minutes, thir- 

 teen notes of ten different birds, given by a flock of Starlings — per- 



