FEBRUARY FEATHERS 37 



starlings, those two foreigners which have 

 wrought such havoc among our native birds. 

 Their mingled flocks fly up, not only from garbage 

 piles and gutters, but from the thickets and fields 

 which should be filled with our sweet-voiced 

 American birds. It is no small matter for man 

 heedlessly to interfere with Nature. What may 

 be a harmless, or even useful, bird in its native 

 land may prove a terrible scourge when intro- 

 duced where there are no enemies to keep it in 

 check. Nature is doing her best to even matters 

 by letting albinism run riot among the sparrows, 

 and best of all by teaching sparrow hawks to nest 

 under our eaves and thus be on equal terms with 

 their sparrow prey. The starlings are turning 

 out to be worse than the sparrows. Already they 

 are invading the haunts of our grackles and red- 

 wings. 



On some cold day, when the sun is shining, visit 

 all the orchards of which you know, and see if in 

 one or more you cannot find a good-sized, gray, 

 black, and white bird, which keeps to the topmost 

 branch of a certain tree. Look at him carefully 

 through your glasses, and if his beak is hooked, 

 like that of a hawk, you may know that you are 

 watching a northern shrike, or butcher bird. His 

 manner is that of a hawk, and his appearance 

 causes instant panic among small birds. If you 

 watch long enough you may see him pursue and 

 kill a goldfinch, or sparrow, and devour it. These 



