188 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



trees to the wheat fields, and did not appear to molest the 

 wheat at all. A few gardeners claim that they pull sprout- 

 ing corn and eat peas. Mrs. Frank L. Allen of West Haven 

 states that she watched the starlings at work destroying her 

 lettuce and radishes. Sometimes they have the habit of pull- 

 ing up young plants. 



Mr. Alfred C. Kinsey writes that he noticed the parent 

 birds supplying nestlings with what proved to be the stami- 

 nate flowers of the hickory. Later on in diiferent localities 

 the same peculiarity was noticed. If such feeding becomes 

 extensive it will bring about a failure of nut crops. He has 

 also noticed these birds on grape vines and in trees wantonly 

 tearing off large pieces of leaves, as well as doing damage to 

 various fruit crops. Some observers assert that the starling 

 also destroys the buds of trees, but I have been unable to get 

 definite evidence on this ])oint. 



Food of the Starling. — Examination of the stomachs of 

 102 starlings collected in 1910, 41 of which were nestlings, 

 seems to show that the food of the starling in this country is 

 similar to that taken by it in Europe. The proportion of 

 animal food is very large and consists chiefly of insects. 

 Only 3 birds had taken earthworms, which composed 17.33 

 per cent of their stomach contents; 18 birds had eaten both 

 millipeds (or thousand legs) and spiders; 22 had taken milli- 

 peds but no spiders, and 18 had eaten spiders but no 

 millipeds. The average percentage of millipeds in 22 stom- 

 achs was 39.80 per cent. 



Caterpillars re])resent the largest items of insect food. 

 Fifty-two birds, or more than half the number taken, had 

 eaten caterpillars, which formed over 45 per cent of their 

 stomach contents. These appeared to be mainly, if not en- 

 tirely, hairless larvse, among which Geometrids or inch 

 worms, were recognized. Probably a large percentage of 

 these caterpillars were Noctuids, or cutworms, as I fre- 

 quently recognized cutworms in the bills of the parent birds 

 when they were feeding their young. Very few moths were 

 noted in the stomachs, but some tincid cocoons were found in 



