STARLING. 
on wooded hillsides, as well as alder thickets along rivers 
and in swamps, but never the forests. 
The Alder Flycatcher has no more of a song than the 
Chebec, in other words, nothing beyond three syllables 
generally described as ‘‘ Wee-zee-un” or two syllables like 
qui-deeé or, as Bradford Torrey has it “Quay-quéer.”” The 
tones are very high, without definite pitch, and decidedly 
as unmusical as the Phoebe’s ‘‘tuneless performance,” 
however, it is possible to express both pitch and rhythm on 
the musical staff, and here they are: 
Wee- Bee up Quay ~- queer 
The quality of tone is something between the Phoebe’s 
and that of the two-note call of a young Goldfinch, with 
the accent on the final quéer. Certainly this is not espe- 
cially musical. 
Family Sturnide. 
Starling The Starling is a European bird nearly 
een vulgaris related to the Crow and Blackbirds, and is 
All the year essentially arboreal and gregarious. It was 
successfully introduced into this country by 
Mr. Eugene Schieffelin in 1890. Numbers which were 
liberated in Central Park, New York, have spread all over 
the country in the vicinity and as far east as Boston. It 
is more or less common in the Connecticut valley as far 
north as Springfield, up the Hudson valley as far as New- 
burgh, through New Jersey from Englewood and: So. 
Orange to Princeton, and on Long Island and Staten Island. 
The coloring of the bird is rather odd; black throughout 
with magenta and green iridescence, the upper feathers 
spotted, i.e. tipped with light buff; lower parts, wings, and 
tail dark brownish gray, the bill yellow. In winter the 
brown-gray and buffy coloring has increased and obscured 
the iridescent black; plumage of the female similar but less 
brilliant. Nest in hollow trees or sheltered corners of old 
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