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). 



Miss Gertrude Whiting of New York City writes me that 

 in Switzerland enormous flocks of starlings come down like 

 black clouds on the vineyards. In ten or fifteen minutes they 

 pluck the fruit absolutely clean, and the cultivator is robbed 

 of his year's crop. In the south of France starlings are said to 

 be similarly destructive to the olive crop. This indicates what 

 would happen in America were the starlings to become abnor- 

 mally numerous. 



It is of particular interest to learn what we can of the nature 

 of the starling in its own country in its relations to other birds. 

 In Europe the starling is known to eat the eggs and the newly 

 hatched young of sparrows, but this habit does not seem to 

 have been generally noted. Mr. Clinton G. Abbott, who is very 

 familiar with the bird in Europe, writes me that he considers 

 its pugnacious nature to be by far the most serious objection 

 to the starling, and that no birds which nest in holes can have 

 any peace at all until all the starlings are satisfied. "Many 

 a time," he Avrites, "have I noticed the British woodpeckers 

 laboriously boring holes in the hard wood, only to find that 

 after a couple of weeks' work a pair of starlings had laid claim 

 to the apartment." The woodpecker never gives up without a 

 fight, but the starling is always victorious, and "the next day 

 trailing straws from the entrance of the cavity show the 

 presence of these new and slovenly tenants." It is said that 

 starlings have become so numerous in parts of England that 

 they evict other hole-nesting birds, and that it has become 

 necessary to provide smaller birds with nesting boxes which the 

 starling cannot enter. The pugnacity of the starling does not 

 seem to be generally noted in the works of European orni- 

 thologists, but apparently at times starlings have battles 

 among themselves. The following copy of an ancient tract, 

 for which I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Samuel N. 

 Rhoads of Haddonfield, New Jersey, is both quaint and in- 

 teresting: — 



