158 BIRDS 



all night long, and if they are disturbed, the rustling of their wings as they 

 rise sounds like distant thunder. Frequently some are found dead on the 

 ground, and it is generally concluded that they have perished from the 

 cold, and not through the effects of phosphorised grain. The cats eat their 

 bodies without harm. 



Mr George Green, Broad Bay, wrote: "The only poisoning done 

 here is intended for the sparrows, and I have never heard of starlings 

 taking the grain ; but they have developed a taste for the elder-berries." 



Mr H. Watts of Maungatua stated that the starlings do not touch 

 poisoned grain, though they had developed a strong predilection for 

 red currants. They were commonly found among the bushes, and 

 one which was shot contained a large number of berries in the crop. 



Mr Thomas M'Latchie, Owaka, wrote: "Poisoned grain has been 

 laid for rabbits for two or three months in my paddocks. Flocks of 

 starlings have been busy amongst the grass, but I have never seen 

 one of them touch an oat." 



Mr A. Philpott writing to me in July, 1916, says: 



This bird is certainly less plentiful than it was twenty-five or thirty 

 years ago. Possibly the want of suitable nesting-places may have something 

 to do with it. So much bush has been cleared away since the starlings' 

 greatest abundance, that it must be somewhat difficult now to find suitable 

 hollow trees, for the bird does not appear to penetrate deeply into the 

 bush. In 1914 I found it building in a mass of ivy on a cabbage tree 

 (Cordyline) in the centre of Invercargill, and last year at Wyndham I found 

 several broods in masses of Muhlenbeckia. The bush tree there is chiefly 

 matai (Podocarpus spicatus), a tree that does not provide many holes suitable 

 for nests. 



Two years later he states that the bird is not nearly so plentiful 

 as it used to be, and attributes the change to the decrease in the 

 number of suitable nesting places, on account of the disappearance 

 of old forest trees. A North Canterbury farmer writing to Mr Jas. 

 Drummond in August, 1910, states that starlings are very destructive 

 to humble bees, and he has repeatedly seen them catching these 

 insects and taking them to their nests. 



Mr B. C. Aston tells me that starlings frequently imitate other 

 birds, which are new to them. He has noticed them in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Wellington imitating both the Californian quail and 

 Australian magpies. 



Hilgendorf says that in the Cass district they leave the houses to 

 the sparrows, and build among the rocks and tussocks 1 . 



1 In connection with the blow-fly pest in sheep, in Australia, Dr Cleland says 

 of the starling (and sparrow): "Though useful to a slight extent, they do much 

 more harm than good. Neither apparently plays any definite part in controlling 

 the blow-fly pest." "The stomachs of seventy-three of the introduced birds were 

 examined. As regards the vegetable food, wheat grains were found in a few and 



