RED- WINGED STARLING 



35 



viously strewed near the reeds and alder bushes where they are 

 known to roost, which being instantly set on fire, the consternation 

 and havock is prodigious ; and the party return by day to pick up 

 the slaughtered game. About the first of November, they begin to 

 move off towards the south; tho near the sea coast, in the states 

 of New Jersey and Delaware, they continue long after that period. 



Such are the general manners and character of the Med-winged 

 Starling; but there remain some facts to be mentioned, no less au^ 

 thentic, and well deserving the consideration of its enemies, more 

 especially of those whose detestation of this species would stop at 

 nothing short of total extirpation. 



It has been already stated that they arrive in Pennsylvania 

 late in March. Their general food at this season, as well as during 

 the early part of summer, (for the Crows and Purple Grakles are 

 the principal pests in planting time) consists of grub-worms, cater- 

 pillars, and various other larvae, the silent but deadly enemies of 

 all vegetation, and whose secret and insidious attacks are more to 

 be dreaded by the husbandman than the combined forces of the 

 whole feathered tribes together. For these vermin the Starlings 

 search with great diligence ; in the ground, at the roots of plants, in 

 orchards, and meadows, as well as among buds, leaves and blos- 

 soms; and from their known voracity the multitudes of these in- 

 sects which they destroy must be immense. Let me illustrate this 

 by a short computation. If we suppose each bird, on an average, 

 to devour fifty of these larvae in a day (a very moderate allowance) 

 a single pair in four months, the usual time such food is sought 

 after, will consume upwards of twelve thousand. It is believed, that 

 not less than a million pair of these birds are distributed over the 

 whole extent of the United States in summer; whose food being near- 

 ly the same, would swell the amount of vermin destroyed to twelve 

 thousand millions. But the number of young birds may be fairly es- 

 timated at double that of their parents, and as these are constantly 

 fed on larvae for at least three weeks, making only the same allow- 



