No. 4.] REPORT OF STATE ORNITHOLOGIST. 183 



Were rewards or bounties offered with a view to its ex- 

 tinction, blackbirds, meadowlarks and other native species, 

 which consort with the starling, would be among the chief 

 sufferers. The starling is here to stay, and we must make the 

 best of it. Whether its presence will result in more good than 

 harm will depend largely on the ratio of its increase. We 

 now know enough of its habits in this country to forecast some 

 of the results that may be expected from an excess of the 

 species. 



The Starling drives Certain Native Birch from their 

 Nests. — When any animal is successfully introduced into 

 a new country, and increases rapidly, its advent naturally 

 tends to upset the biologic balance. Its native natural ene- 

 mies have been left behind in its own country, where it had 

 a settled and established place in a series of natural forces, 

 that had been in existence for centuries, and it becomes an 

 interloper in the new land, among conditions and forms of 

 life entirely new. If the species is weak or unfit for its 

 new environment^ or if it is introduced into a land differing 

 much in climatic conditions from its own, it dies out and 

 no disturbance results ; but if it is strong and fit, and the 

 climate is suitable, it is likely to increase abnormally in num- 

 bers, and it cannot so increase without displacing some of the 

 species native to the soil. 



The starling is a hardy, capable and prolific bird, which, 

 like the sparrow, has had many centuries of experience in 

 getting its living in populated countries and cultivated re- 

 gions in close relationship with man, and in such an environ- 

 ment it has survived and thriven. It thus has an advantage 

 over our native species similar to that enjoyed by the spar- 

 row, which, subsequent to its introduction here, displaced so 

 many native birds during the latter quarter of the nineteenth 

 century. How can the bluebird or the house wren, which 

 have been accustomed to life about human habitations for a 

 comparatively short time, compete with such a bird as the 

 starling? 



The friends of the sparrow argued that it would fill a void 

 in our city life that no native bird could possibly occupy, 

 inasmuch as it would always have in the streets a plentiful 



