ECONOMIC VALUE OF THE STABLING. 51 



no opportunity to secure data on this point was overlooked. Blue- 

 birds are common and generally distributed in the sections thickly 

 settled with starlings, and although observers have noted their dis- 

 appearance in small areas confined to a dooryard or two, it is the 

 opinion of those who are qualified to judge the general abundance of 

 these birds that in Connecticut and northeastern New Jersey blue- 

 birds have either held their own or increased in numbers in the last 

 few years. Since bluebirds will continue to nest commonly in locali- 

 ties away from human habitation where they have little to fear from 

 starlings, and since even in the dooryard, their nests, eggs, and 

 young may be protected by providing nest boxes having an opening 

 no greater than 1^ inches in diameter, there is little danger of the race 

 as a whole being placed in jeopardy. 



The flicker also will be driven from the vicinity of houses, but it, 

 too, will always find a refuge in wilder situations to which the starling 

 seldom goes. In those parts of Connecticut, New York, and New 

 Jersey where the starling has been a common bird and in competition 

 with the flicker for at least 15 years the latter still maintains as con- 

 spicuous a place in the bird World as it does in other parts of these 

 States where the starling is not yet common. The same can be said 

 of the robin, which in northeastern New Jersey and along the Connec- 

 ticut shore is an extremely abundant bird. Martins are more abun- 

 dant in western, central, and southern New Jersey than in the center 

 of starling population, but such a condition of relative abundance 

 existed before the advent of the starling, and it can not be construed 

 as a result of starling aggression. Neither can the apparent decrease 

 in the English sparrow population throughout New Jersey and parts 

 of New England in the last 10 years be correlated with the spread 

 of the starling, as in many sections where the decrease of the sparrow 

 has been noted the starling has not yet arrived in numbers. As for 

 the other species at present known to be attacked by starlings, the 

 acts of vandalism are so occasional that the effect is negligible and the 

 situation is by no means as serious as that presented by the predatory 

 habits of the blue jay, the grackle, or the crow. 



A consideration of the economic significance of displacing certain 

 native species by the starling involves judgment of the relative 

 worth of the various species. A comparison of the merits of the 

 starling with those of its breeding competitors reveals that it is 

 certainly more valuable than the robin, flicker, or English sparrow; 

 that it has food habits fully as favorable as those of the house wren; 

 and that the bluebird and martin are the only species with which 

 the starling is in intimate competition whose economic worth might 

 be considered greater than that of the starling. 



