RED - WINGED STARLING. 
13 
and well deserving Che 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 daring the early 
part of summer (for the Crows and Purple Grakles are the principal 
pests in planting time), consists of grub-worms, caterpillars, 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 blossoms ; and from their known voracity the multitudes of 
these insects 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 nearly the same, would 
swell the amount of vermin destroyed to twelve thousand millions. But 
the number of young birds may be fairly estimated at double that of 
their parents, and as these are constantly fed on larvae for at least three 
weeks, making only the same allowance for them as for the old ones, 
their share would amount to four thousand two hundred millions ; mak- 
ing a grand total of sixteen thousand two hundred millions of noxious 
insects destroyed in the space of four months by this single species ! 
The combined ravages of such a hideous host of vermin would be suffi- 
cient to spread famine and desolation over a wide extent of the richest 
and best cultivated country on earth. All this, it may be said, is mere 
supposition. It is, however, supposition founded on known and acknow- 
ledged facts. I have never dissected any of these birds in spring with- 
out receiving the most striking and satisfactory proofs of those facts ; 
and though in a matter of this kind it is impossible to ascertain pre- 
cisely the amount of the benefits derived by agriculture from this and 
many other species of our birds ; yet in the present case I cannot resist 
the belief, that the services of this species, in spring, are far more im- 
portant and beneficial than the value of all tho/t portion of corn which 
a careful and active farmer permits himself to lose by it. 
The great range of country frequented by this bird extends from 
Mexico on the south, to Labrador. Our late enterprising travellers 
across the continent to the Pacific Ocean observed it numerous in several 
of the valleys at a great distance up the Missouri. When taken alive, 
or reared from the nest, it soon becomes familiar, sings freOjiiently, 
