344 



PERCHING BIRDS. 



Starlings are found throughout the Eastern Hemisphere, with the exception of 

 New Zealand. 



In the typical genus (Stumus) the beak is as long as the 



head, and blunt at the tip and depressed, its edges being quite 



smooth ; the wings are long and pointed, and the tail is short and squared. 



The members of the genus principally inhabit the temperate regions of Europe 



and Asia, as well as Northern Africa. 



common Breeding commonly in most parts of temperate Europe, although 



starling. more rarely in the north than in the central districts of the Continent, 

 the common starling (Stumus vulgaris) is one of the most adaptive of birds, in 

 consequence of which its range is steadily increasing. In the British Islands it 

 has increased of late years to an extraordinary extent. So long as the starling con- 

 tented itself with nesting sporadically in the pigeon-houses of farms and in hollow 

 trees, as, for example, in the London parks, the public naturally desired to afford 

 protection to so charming a bird ; and there can be no doubt that it merits much 

 interest, since it works assiduously to destroy the larvae of such injurious insects 

 as the crane-fly. 



At the same time it is only right that we should take into account the 

 heavy loss which fruit-growers frequently sustain from the inroads of hordes of 

 hungry starlings ; the extraordinary numbers of tnese birds which visit orchards 

 of ripe fruit almost defying description. Quite recently the starling has 

 developed an alarming fondness for ripe pears and apples ; nor does he altogether 

 disdain wild fruit ; even the berries of the mountain-ash are much to his taste, 

 and he constantly strips them with extreme pertinacity. When feeding on grass 

 lands, in company with thrushes, the starling is apt to play the part of a 

 bully, robbing his gentler neighbours of their fairly-earned subsistence. 



In addition to being a vocalist of no mean order, the starling is a first-class 

 mimic, and delights in reproducing familiar sounds with the greatest fidelity 

 to truth. We have heard individual starlings reproduce the call - note of 

 the skylark, goldfinch, wagtail, and other small birds ; sometimes we have been 

 startled on a winter's day to recognise the cry of the common sandpiper or the 

 grating call-note of a fern-owl in the middle of a crowded city, and have discovered 

 the author of our astonishment in the person of a starling, that is pouring forth 

 his rhapsodies from some neighbouring chimney-top. Perfection is not easily 

 acquired ; but the starling practises his performances until he acquires a high 

 measure of proficiency. 



The starling does not, however, confine his attention to the reproducing the notes 

 of other birds; anj^ sound that strikes his fancy being rehearsed time after time, until 

 the sharpest expert might be deceived. Not long ago, one of these birds astonished 

 its human neighbours by reproducing the hammering of a stonemason, who had been 

 engaged in dressing stone. The starling nests in April, and the young usually fl}~ 

 about the end of May ; many pairs rearing two broods of young in a season. Some 

 birds nest in the recesses of sea-caves in company with rock-doves and black 

 guillemots ; others rear their broods in the interior of old stone walls ; while others 

 again inhabit and enlarge the burrows of sand-martins in some perpendicular cliff : 

 by far the greater number nest, however, about human habitations. In some 



