STARLINGS. 



531 



showed that it is a true starling. It is easily tamed, and the following observation of 



Dr. Biiller was made on a pair which he kept in captivity for more than a year: 



" What interested me most of all was the manner in which the birds assisted each 

 other in their search for food, because it apjjcared to explain the use, in the economy 

 of nature, of the differently formed bills in the two sexes. To divert the birds, I 

 introduced a log of decayed wood infested with the huhu grub [the larva of a larfe 

 nocturnal beetle, Prlonojiliis reticularis']. They at once attacked it, carefully pro- 

 bing the softer parts with their bills, and then vigorously assailing them, scoo])ing out 

 the decayed wood till the larva or pupa was visible, when it was carefully drawn 

 from its cell, treated in the way described above, and then swallowed. The very 

 different develo])ment of the mandibles in the two se.\es enabled them to perform 



Fig. 2iH. — 1'a.^tor roseus^ rose-colonul p;i^if>r. 



separate offices. The male always attnckcil the more decayed portions of llie wood, 

 chiselling out his prey after the manner of some wood-peckers, while the female 

 probed with her long pliant bill the other cells, where the hardness of the surround- 

 ing parts resisted the chisel of her mate. Sometimes I observed the m.ale remove 

 the decayed portions without being able to reach the gnib, when the female would at 

 once come to his .lid, and accomplish witli her long slender bill wliat he had failed to 

 do. I noticed, liowever, that the female always approjiriated to her own use the 

 morsels tlius obtainecl." 



The straight, conical bill is also characteristic of the common European starling 

 {Slimius vnlffaris), which is figured liere with its near ally, the Sardinian starling 

 (S. unicolor), both shining greenish black, the former spotted with whitish. In 

 Europe it is of common, thotigh somewhat local occurrence, but in most places where it 



