612 Agricultural Gazette of N.S. IV. 2, 1912. 
Then we were startled to hear a spirited imitation of the blue wren’s notes. But the 
leading note, the note most characteristic of the starling, was one which suggested the 
breath drawn in with a musical sound. 
Dr. Bowdler Sharp, in the “ Royal Natural History,” tells how the star¬ 
ling mimics other birds. He says :— 
We have heard individual starlings reproduce the call note of the skylark, goldfinch, 
wagtail, and other small birds. Sometimes we hav^e been startled on a winter’s day to 
recognise the cry of the common sandpiper, or the grating call-note of a fern owl, in the 
middle of a crowded city, and have discovered the author of our astonishment in the 
person of a starling that is pouring forth his rhapsodies from some neighbouring chimney. 
It was, and perhaps may still be, a common practice on the Continent to 
keep the starling as a talking cage bird. Years ago it was a cruel custom to 
sear their eyes with a red hot wire, under the impression that blinded birds 
alw^ays talked best. 
Readers will remember the pathetic chapter on the starling, in Lawrence 
Sterne’s “ Sentimental Journey in France,” where he says :— 
On my return through the passage I heard the same words repeated twice over, and, 
looking up, I saw it was a starling hung in a little cage. “I can’t get out, 1 can’t get 
out ” said the starling. The bird flew to the place where T was attempting his deliver¬ 
ance, and thrusting his head through the trellis, pressed his breast against it as if 
impatient. “ I fear, poor creature,” said I, “ I cannot set thee at liberty.” “ No,” said 
the starling, “I can’t get out; I can’t get out.” 
Pliny says that the two Csesars, Germanicus and Drusifus, had a stare and 
sundry nightingales taught to speak Greek and Latin. “ Moreover, they would 
study on their lessons, and meditate all day long, and from day to day come 
out with new words—yea, and were able to continue a long speech and 
discourse.” 
The question of the value or otherwise of the starling from an economic 
standpoint is such a vexed one that it is well worth considering, and the 
writer proposes to place both sides of the question before the readers of these 
notes. 
A Domestic Pest. 
In the suburbs of our large cities, and some of our country towns, the 
starling has become such a domestic bird, that it often tumbles down the 
chimney and startles the inmates of the house. It is domestic, or rather too 
familiar, in its nesting arrangements, for it carries a mass of sticks, grass, 
and other material into the roofs of houses, wherever it can find an opening 
large enough to squeeze through ; consequently, where starlings are numerous, 
as in the neighbourhood of Melbourne and Sydney, they soon form large 
accumulations of these nesting materials. These heaps then become infested 
with a minute semi-transparent mite, which lives upon the birds themselves ; 
and under favourable conditions the mites increase in such numb'-rs tliat 
they often spread throughout the house, and getting into the beds and clothes 
of the occupants, cause a great deal of annoyance and pain by biting and 
sucking blood. From its minute size and colourless body (until it has sucked 
some blood), this mite is very difficult to detect, and it is not an uncommon 
thing in Sydney for a doctor to be called in to examine the suspicious red 
rash caused on delicate skins by the objectionable starling mite. 
