PASSERIFORMES 



155 



prise. The increase of this species was phenomenal. Mr C. Hutchins 

 writes (November, 1913): 



when I arrived in Napier from England in 1875, there were only four 

 starlings in the town. They increased rapidly and took possession of the 

 limestone bluff that looks out over the bay, boring into the softer veins 

 of limestone. After eleven years they were there in hundreds of thousands. 

 The bird has few, if any natural enemies. 



Mr H. Hill (of Napier) considers that the comparative disappear- 

 ance of the bird from the cliffs about Napier, where it and the wild 

 pigeon (Columba livia, i.e. tame pigeons gone wild) used to be extra- 

 ordinarily abundant, is due to their being driven away by the harrier 

 hawks. If Mr Hill's view is correct, it is probably due to the fact 

 that the hawks were after the pigeons, and the starlings suffered 

 through association with them. In open country I don't think hawks 

 are a serious enemy to the starlings. 



These birds are abundant in most parts of the country, and in 

 favourite spots, where they congregate in numbers, the noise they 

 make when roosting can be heard, literally for miles. Mr W. W. 

 Smith of New Plymouth writes me : 



Every evening tens of thousands of starlings perform their cloudlike 

 gyrations around and above the island of Moturoa which is clearly seen 

 from this hill. Every person who sees them compares them to rapidly 

 moving clouds. It is truly magnificent to see them; they form densely 

 black cloud-like masses. 



Mr W. Best of Otaki reports (April, 1912): "that the starlings in 

 that district make long daily flights (of 30 miles ?) to and from their 

 roosting place to their food." These only occur in the summer and 

 autumn, after the breeding season, and the birds fly at sunset and 

 before sunrise. Mr Mahoney of Tuparoa describes how they come 

 in thousands from some feeding ground near the coast to roost on 

 the trees behind the house. Mr Johannes Anderen says they roost 

 on Kapiti and fly to the mainland daily for food. 



Mr H. J. Fowler of Marton writes (June, 1912): "The daily 

 evening migrations began about seven or eight years ago. At first 

 the flocks were small and infrequent, now they pass in battalions. 

 On calm evenings the air is filled with the rushing sound of their 

 wings." He has seen flocks a mile long, all the birds flying in line, 

 like soldiers marching in ranks. These appear to be made up of 

 flocks rising at intervals across the country and uniting in the air. 

 He estimated the numbers at hundreds of thousands. In Marton 

 the birds fly south-west, and it is stated that they go to the Manuka 

 scrub on the coast. At one place a piece of native bush, about four 

 or five acres in area, was used as a roosting place by the birds, and so 



