210 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL ]\rQSEUM 



before long all but what might have been the original nucleus left him. 

 I watched the performance for a quarter of an hour or so, and the 

 hawk soared high and covered a considerable distance in his circling 

 flight, but the starlings, in close formation, as is their custom in flocks, 

 stuck to him. Sometimes he would rise above them, but only for a 

 moment, for they would speedily regain and keep the ascendant, though 

 the pursuit carried them much higher than starlings ordinarily fly. 

 Again once in September I saw a large band of starlings pursuing an 

 osprey. In the short time before they abandoned the chase I could not 

 see that the large bird paid any attention to them, but shortly after 

 that the same band was seen sporting with a sparrow hawk, and in this 

 case the hawk flew about among them as if in play." 



In their competition for nesting sites, starlings have sometimes 

 found that flickers, bluebirds, and even English sparrows were more 

 than a match for them and have had to retreat, though the reverse is 

 usually the case. 



Joseph B. Sommer (1937) found that a large number of starlings 

 examined in Illinois were infested with internal parasites; 132 birds 

 were examined, among which 51 "were hosts to one or more parasites, 

 all of which were found in the intestinal tract." External parasites 

 identified by Harold S. Peters (1936) included three species of lice, 

 one mite, and one tick. 



We probably have not been bandings birds long enough to learn 

 the maximum age to which starlings live. Mr. Thomas's (1934) band- 

 ing records in Ohio "indicate that a very small proportion of Starlings 

 attain an age of five years, although a fair number reach an age of four 

 and many attain the age of three years." But since then, birds have 

 been reported that were six years old and even eight years old. 



Dr. Friedmann (1934) published the only record I have seen of a 

 cowbird laying an egg in a starling's nest; I doubt if it ever hatched. 



Fall. — After the young starlings have completed their postjuvenal 

 molt, the flocks of young birds that have been wandering about by 

 themselves join with the flocks of adults in preparation for migration. 

 They inherited the migratory instinct from their European ancestors, 

 but in this country they had no established route of migration. This 

 had to be learned from other birds. Being naturally gregarious and 

 apparently fond of association with other species of similar habits, 

 they naturally joined with the grackles, red-winged-blackbirds, and 

 cowbirds in their autumnal wanderings and in their great roosts, even- 

 tually following them southward. But, as Dr. Alexander Wetmore 

 (1926) says, "the blackbirds in question habitually fly from 22 to 28 

 miles per hour, while the starling as regularly travels at a rate of 38 

 to 49 miles per hour. The two speeds are so incompatible that it 

 might be difficult for the species to keep together in prolonged flight." 

 Therefore, it appears as if the grackles and others led the way and 



