229 



THE OOLOGIST 



etc., the common everyday birds 

 around the home. 



Burroughs' writing needs no com- 

 mendation; it is in a rank by itself. 

 This is published by Houghton, Miff- 

 lin Company, 4 Park Street, Boston, 

 Mass., at the price of 80c net. 

 Martin Houses. 



The mail brings the annual spring 

 publication by the Jacobs Bird House 

 Company of Waynesburg, Pa., en- 

 titled "The American Bird House 

 Journal for 1912." 



This is a guide for bird lovers in 

 attracting the Purple Martin and 

 other house nesting birds by supply- 

 ing bird houses and nesting boxes for 

 them. The price is 25c, which it is 

 well worth to any persons interested 

 in such matters, being brim full of in- 

 formation on this subject and pro- 

 fusely illustrated by first-class illus- 

 trations. 



The True Story of a Starling. 



It was on a beautiful afternoon in 

 May that we found him. All winter 

 we had watched with amused inter- 

 est a pair of starlings that spent 

 most of the time in strutting solemn- 

 ly side by side on the lawn at our 

 English garden. Then when early in 

 the spring they built their nest un- 

 der the eaves of the house, we felt 

 that their bond of friendship was 

 more strongly cemented; but little 

 we knew that one of the nestlings 

 was to be our pet and constant com- 

 panion through the long summer. 



Poor little odd creature, when we 

 picked him up from the stone walk 

 we thought that with his enormous 

 mouth and prominent black eyes he 

 looked more like a frog than any- 

 thing else. Not a feather had he, 

 and we wondered that the soft little 

 body had survived the fall of more 

 than twenty feet. Our first idea was 

 to get him back to his nest, but this 



we found impossible as it was inac- 

 cessible. However, a young carpen- 

 ter, who was working about the 

 house, came to our aid and after 

 managing to drive a nail into the 

 wall, fairly near the nest, he hung 

 on it the basket into which we had 

 placed the baby starling. We hoped 

 that the parent birds, who were oc- 

 cupied as usual in supplying the end- 

 less amount of food evidently re- 

 quired by young starlings, would 

 come to feed him as well. But in 

 this we were doomed to disappoint- 

 ment, for after eyeing the basket 

 with great distrust, for sometime 

 they reached their nest by making a 

 wide de'tour, never heeding the 

 plaintive cries of their child. As we 

 continued watching, we saw him 

 scramble to the top of the basket 

 cling there for a moment, then fall 

 again with a sickening thud at our 

 feet. "Poor little creature," I said, 

 "if he is not killed this ti'^e, I am 

 going to take care of him." No 

 sooner said than done and in a min- 

 ute or two he was comfortably rest- 

 ing in a soft artificial nest, the chil- 

 dren all looking on with eager inter- 

 est. The first thing was to feed him. 

 Not knowing what starlings li : -:e 

 best to eat I, at a venture, prepared 

 some bread and milk. To my relief 

 he took it at once with aviditv, and 

 from that time on my only trouble 

 with his food was to see that he had 

 enough. 



Strange to say he was not in the 

 least hurt by either fall, and flour- 

 ished from the first. He never 

 showed the slightest fear and unlike 

 most birds loved to. be handled and 

 petted. When he was very little he 

 would always go happily to sleep 

 when I held him in one hand and 

 covered him with the other. 



He grew apace and at the end of 

 a week was fully feathered. With 



