ECONOMIC VALUE OF THE STARLING. — q 
shore as far as Bridgeport. It is possible, of course, for the size of 
post-breeding roosts and winter flocks to be further augmented in 
this section by an increased breeding population in adjacent country. 
Taking this area as a whole, the starling about equaled the English 
sparrow as a breeder. In the residential sections of some of the cities 
it outnumbered the sparrow, but it in turn was greatly outnumbered 
about the freight yards, markets, business streets, and dumping 
grounds; and even in many of the rural sections the sparrow predomi- 
nated. 
Beyond this area of maximum abundance, centers of starling 
population, where the starling as much as equaled the English spar- 
row as a breeder, were quite restricted and often isolated from other 
colonies by many miles. Consequently, exaggerated ideas regarding 
the average abundance of the starling throughout its range were also 
held by persons living in the vicinity of localized colonies. A dis- 
tance of but a few miles will at times reveal great differences in star- 
ling abundance. At Bernardsville, N. J. (July 22-25), starlings were 
too scarce to make collecting profitable, although at Mendham, only 
6 miles to the north, the brood of the year was so abundant about 
the farms close to the village that the birds inflicted severe damage 
to the cherry crop. At Somerville, N. J. (June-5-8), only 10 miles 
from Plainfield, a center of starling’ population, the same unfavorable 
collecting conditions were met. At Freehold, N. J. (September 18- 
October 1), the location of a roost in the town accounted for an 
unusual abundance of starlings on the near-by farms, especially in 
early morning and late afternoon. After the roost had been eradi- 
cated, the starling could not be placed any higher than tenth in a — 
list of birds of the surrounding country, arranged according to their — 
abundance. 
In 1916, there was a vast area along the borders of the starling’s 
range where the bird was too scarce to be of any great economic sig- 
nificance. This applied to most of Massachusetts and Rhode Island; 
New York, north and west of Kingston; Pennsylvania and Delaware, 
outside of a 30-mile radius of Philadelphia; and New Jersey, south 
of a line drawn from Salem to Toms River. In this region many 
farmers were wholly unacquainted with the bird and very few had 
complaints to make. | 
With a knowledge of the starling’s habitat and food preferences, 
both in Europe and in this country, and of the bird’s ability to adapt 
itself to new environment, some conjecture may be ventured as to 
its ultimate distribution in the United States. Until 1916, the 
Allegheny Mountains appeared to be an effective barrier against 
progress to the west, but now that numbers have been reported at 
points west of the divide, the spread through the low, fertile farm land 
of Ohio and Indiana may be rapid. There appears no reason why 
