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Bird - Lore 



brown-tipped black feathers of his back 

 matched the general tone of the sidehill. 



The old birds were somewhat shy, 

 never coming nearer than thirty f)r forty 

 feet, excepting once when the young one 

 called while I was holding him; then the 

 female lit for a moment on the ground 

 within a few feet and showed all the signs 

 of motherly anxiety which a bird can. 

 At other times she was flying back and 

 forth at some distance with a peculiar 

 jerky flight, seeming to punctuate each 

 wingbeat with a sharp whistled note, only 

 occasionally alighting on the ground, or 

 on a fence post for a few seconds. The 

 male kept himself for the most part in the 

 background. 



Just before leaving I placed the young 

 one in the nest and started to look over 

 the sidehill, in the hope of finding another 

 of the family. In the meantime the female 

 lit on the top of the hill and commenced 

 to whistle. When I returned to the nest it 

 was empty, nor could I find the young 

 one after searching thoroughly. She had 

 evidently whistled to very good purpose. 



The whole family had disappeared 

 completely, leaving only a trampled nest 

 to show where these hardy little birds had 

 reared their young in spite of the cold, 

 blustering March weather.— Robert S. 

 JUDD, Bethel, Conn. 



What the Starling Does at Home 



In view of the reports concerning the 

 habits of the Starling which have appeared 

 in recent numbers of Bird-Lore, the notes 

 given below, which show what the bird 

 does when at home, may be of interest. 

 These notes are from an article entitled: 

 "Birds in Relation to the Farm, the Or- 

 chard, the Garden, and the Forest," which 

 is to be found in the August (1907) num- 

 ber of the "Agricultural Students' Ga- 

 zette," a periodical published at Ciren- 

 cester, England. 



"The Starling is a splendid bird on 

 grass land, foraging for leather jackets 

 (larvae of craneflies), wire-worms, etc., 

 rids the sheep of a few of their ticks, but 

 in a fruit district it comes in droves into 

 the strawberries and attacks the cherries 



wholesale (Hereford); peas, apples, plums, 

 as well as cherries (Kent), also raspberries. 

 \'ery valuable insect-destroyers, but get- 

 ting too numerous (Nott). In my fruit- 

 fields (between Harden and Colchester), 

 I do not sufi'er very much from Blackbirds 

 and Thrushes, nor do I grudge them their 

 toll in return for their song. Only one bird 

 is dangerous to my crops — that is the 

 Starling. He threatened the utter de- 

 struction of our strawberry, raspberry, 

 cherry, gooseberry, and currant, and some 

 other crops. These birds are said to come 

 to us from the marshes as soon as the 

 young are hatched. And they come in 

 millions; in flocks that darken the sky. 

 Their flight is like the roar of the sea, or 

 like the train going over the arches. Their 

 number increases rapidly each year. I can 

 look back to the time when there were few, 

 and have watched their increase for forty 

 years, till now it is intolerable (Essex). 

 The Starling is a terror, and life around 

 here is hardly worth living; you must have 

 a gun always in your hand, or woe betide 

 the cherries — they come in thousands. 

 (Sittingbourne, Kent)." 



Such reports — though doubtless exag- 

 gerated somewhat — coming from different 

 localities, and from the people who have 

 suffered loss, are certainly suggestive of 

 what may happen in this country, as the 

 Starling increases in numbers. For more 

 than twenty years after their introduction, 

 English Sparrows had many staunch de- 

 fenders. — S. H. Goodwin, Provo, Utah. 



A Southern Starling Record 



A pair of Starlings have wintered at 

 47th and Baltimore Avenue, West Phila- 

 delphia, and I am told they nested at 46th 

 and Baltimore, on the Twaddell estate 

 last summer. — Thom.'^s R. Hill, Pliila. 



Information Wanted 



The undersigned desires to make studies 

 of the home-life of the Hummingbird and 

 Chickadee, and would be grateful for in- 

 formation in regard to the whereabouts of 

 nests of these species situated within fifty 

 miles of New York City. — F. M. Chap- 

 man, Englewood, N . J. 



