usa war u. of t. oosama-, 
FOREST AND STREAM 
[Dec. 25, 1909. 
Noted Robbers—Starlings. 
The jay and the crow have a very bad repu¬ 
tation—that of robbing other birds’ nests—and 
it is richly deserved. Which is the worse it were 
hard to say. Probably one is as bad as the 
other. But their methods are different. 
The jay reminds one of the jolly freebooter 
of old. He seems to take a pride in his de¬ 
pravity and to rob as much for amusement as 
for plunder. He will approach a nest in full 
day. The protests of the owner are met with 
jeers of mockery, as it were. If these could be 
translated into words the result would be some¬ 
thing like this : “Ha ! ha! I like to hear a poor 
insignificant little tit like you with common drab 
plumage threaten the like of me! You make me 
laugh, really. But what’s the matter with you, 
anyway? Do you not see that I am paying you 
a distinguished honor in deigning to select your 
eggs for my breakfast? You must be a very 
stupid little bird. Please stop that outcry and 
leave me in peace.” 
Then after hopping from limb to limb all 
about the nest and displaying his gay military 
trappings to the full, he will proceed to pounce 
upon the eggs or young, as the case may be. 
Quite often as much of these will be scattered 
upon the ground as will be eaten. His whole 
manner is reckless and extravagant. Nor does 
he exhibit the least fear or appear to be in the 
slightest degree conscious that what he is doing 
is wrong. When his feast is finished he will 
hop about again, more gaily and superciliously 
than ever, and finally fly off with a mocking 
laugh, while the poor little victim views the 
ruins of her hopes with despair. 
Plow different from all this is the crow and 
his manner of procedure! With the air of a 
midnight marauder he tries industriously to live 
up to it. He will only approach a nest in the 
dusk of morning or evening and his maneuvers 
are stealthy and cautious in the extreme. After 
the discoverey of the nest he will fly off a cer¬ 
tain distance and take up a position of observa¬ 
tion. Having satisfied himself that there are no 
traps or surprises in store he will fly a little 
nearer the nest. Here he will study the owner 
who now has taken alarm and those whom her 
cries may summon to the spot. If there is noth¬ 
ing to apprehend in the way of attack (and, of 
course, usually there is not), the marauder will 
make his way right up to the nest, which in turn 
he will study while occasionally casting furtive 
glances about him. 
His air at this moment is full of interest. 
Dark and fierce and rapacious, there is yet a 
certain craven look which seems to betray a 
consciousness of guilt. The whole figure would 
do credit to one of those becloaked prowlers 
we read about as lurking o’ nights in the byways 
of old Spain or Italy. 
The outcries of the owner of the nest, of her 
mate, and perhaps of some sympathetic neigh¬ 
bors, become louder and more frantic, but they 
produce no effect upon the intruder, save for 
the occasional side'ong furtive glance, he remain¬ 
ing quite impassive. At length, when every¬ 
thing has been observed and studied and there 
seems to be no danger imminent, the attack is 
made. This is so vorac'ous that in a few 
minutes all is over. Then the marauder, after 
wiping his bill on a branch, will betake himself 
away as silentlv as he came. If we follow his 
lumbering flight with our eyes we will see him 
light upon the top of some tree at a consider¬ 
able distance and there give vent to a series of 
strident caws. This, no doubt, is his way of 
expressing satisfaction over his successful foray. 
I had a very pleasant experience the other 
evening during a walk on Staten Island. As 
I ascended the hill which is back of Living¬ 
ston I noticed that the fine old trees which there 
abound were alive with starlings. The evening 
was calm and beautiful—a parting gift of Indian 
summer—and this seemed to have its influence 
on the birds, as they filled the air with their 
sweet ventriloquial notes. Among these notes I 
thought I detected some new ones—some not 
used by the starling in its old world home. It 
would not be surprising if this were so, for the 
bird is very imitative. Not only will it imitate 
the notes of other birds, but various rural sounds 
and even the human voice. 
After enjoying the unexpected concert for a 
while I continued my walk over the hill. Re¬ 
turning the same way in about an hour I found 
the birds where I had left them. It was begin¬ 
ning to get dusk. Suddenly, as if at a given . 
signal, the flock rose with a great whirring of 
wings and commenced a series of evolutions in 
the air. The grace of these was something to 
fill one with wonder and admiration. Rising and 
falling, opening and closing, wheeling and coun¬ 
ter-wheeling—never did drilled troops perform 
evolutions with such perfect precision. And not 
a note which might serve as order or direction 
was uttered the while! It was really a wonder¬ 
ful exhibition. Almost as suddenly as the birds 
had arisen they descended, and when they were 
again among the trees they broke into a sort of 
subdued chorus which sounded like a thousand 
tinkling streams. This lasted for about ten 
minutes and then all was silence. F. M. 
[It is commonly believed that the starling can 
be taught to articulate words, and this belief is 
an old one, just as is the kindred belief that a 
jackdaw or magpie can be taught to imitate 
human speech if its tongue is split—preferably 
by a silver coin. Many of us remember the 
touching story in Sterne’s “Sentimental Jour¬ 
ney” of the starling which kept calling from its 
cage: “I can’t get out; I can’t get out.”— Editor.] 
A Disappearing Bird. 
Thirty or forty years ago the Eskimo curlew, 
or “doughbird” as it was called in New Eng¬ 
land, was one of the most abundant of American 
birds. All early writers speak of the enormous 
numbers that were seen, and Coues and Packard 
testify to this abundance; Packard speaking of 
a flock a mile long and a mile wide. Yet to-day 
the Eskimo curlew is almost extinct. At a re¬ 
cent meeting of the Biological Society of Wash¬ 
ington, W. W. Cooke read an interesting paper 
on this subject. He tells us that two were shot 
in August, 1908, at Newburyport, Mass., and that 
a few were reported by Dr. Grenfell on the coast 
of Labrador in the autumn of 1906. Two were 
taken at Nantucket, Mass., in August, 1898, and 
the last specimen from the interior of the United 
States was killed at Burlington, la., in 1893. 
The migration path of the Eskimo curlew was 
an ellipse. Nesting on the Barren Grounds of 
Canada it migrated southeasterly to Labrador 
and Nova Scotia, and then set out straight south 
on a journey of 2,000 miles across the Atlantic 
Ocean to reach the Lesser Antilles and South 
America. The bird wintered on the pampas of 
Argentina and in spring set out on its northern 
journey by way of Texas and the Mississippi 
Valley, following a narrow belt on both sides 
of the meridian of 97 degrees. 
The Eskimo curlew was very abundant until 
about 1880, and then within a period of ten years 
the species became almost extinct. During these 
ten years that portion of the Mississippi Valley 
through which it passed on its northern migra¬ 
tion, was largely brought under cultivation, and 
there was a large population ready to destroy 
the traveling birds. What Mr. Cooke regards 
as the most potent factor in its extinction has 
been transformation of its winter home from 
sparsely settled grazing lands to great wheat 
fields. On these pampas the curlew spent nearly 
half fhe year and the changed conditions must 
have enormously affected it, for in the fourteen 
years from 1872 to 1892 the wheat production 
of Argentina increased fifty fold. 
Yet it hardly seems as if this change—extra¬ 
ordinary as it is—should be enough to wipe out 
a species once so enormously abundant. Never¬ 
theless some of the species most numerous in 
individuals, when they once begin to go down 
hill, disappear with great rapidity. 
The Woods in Winter. 
Minneapolis, Minn., Dec. 14.— Editor Forest 
and Stream: All the trees are now bare save 
a few of the black oaks which hold their leaves 
the year around. This gives shelter to numer¬ 
ous birds, and I have especially noted that the 
bluejays roost in them in winter. Often I have 
scared up a stray partridge in their leafy wastes 
when walking through the woods. 
In the first wood that I came to I found a 
bluejay’s nest. The jay with his blue overcoat 
and black band around his neck is a visitor with 
us the year around. And what a beautiful bird 
he is, undoubtedly the finest bird of the wood¬ 
lands. Especially is he a welcome sight -in the 
bleak winter woods where his harsh screams oi 
“Jay-jay-jay” are so often heard. The nest 1 
found was made of roots neatly woven togethei 
in a tree crotch about ten feet from the ground 
I chose the path that led to the main woods 
On my way there I made the acquaintance of < 
pair of red squirrels that were evidently laying 
away a store of acorns for the winter, but upor 
my approach they scurried up the nearest tret 
and began devouring acorns. They regarded m< 
as an intruder no doubt, for a moment later on< 
of them grew suspicious and darted away witl 
a string of expletives to the effect that I wat 
out for no good. I saw several robins at th< 
edge of the woods and wondered why they hac 
not gone south with their kin. What splendic 
birds they are—brave and unafraid always 
Have you ever taken notice of the robin’s song 
The usual call is a clear “Lit-lit-lit-lit-lit” ant 
the song is of changing sweetness, evolved al 
most from a single note and goes in this man 
ner, “Cheer-i-ly, cheer-i-ly, cheer-up.” Usuall; 
the robins come in March and leave in Octobe 
or November. They sometimes stay the year oul 
I sauntered around in the woods for abou 
two hours and came out with so many nests ant 
various other things that I had to discard som 
of them. Robert Lincoln Page. 
