X\ 
ECONOMIC VALUE OF THE STARLING. 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 14 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. 
