Oct. i, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
533 
and a half inches. The differences in growth of 
the two horns can be seen by reference to the 
cut. 
This growth of the horn into the animal’s 
skull and out again suggests the growths of the 
incisor teeth of certain rodents in cases where 
an opposing tooth for any reason has failed to 
perform its work of grinding down its fellow. 
Do You Know the Starling? 
There is more or less newspaper talk about 
the possible damage that may follow the intro¬ 
duction into this country of the now fairly well 
established English starling, and the State Orni¬ 
thologist of Massachusetts is engaged in the 
study of this bird, trying to learn whether it is 
useful or harmful. The 
introduction of various 
forms-of life into new 
quarters of the globe 
has been followed by a 
variety of results. Often 
the introduced species 
soon disappears, as has 
apparently been the case 
with certain foreign 
game birds in America, 
like the European quail 
and the great grouse of 
Northern Europe. Some¬ 
times conditions favor a 
species so that it flour¬ 
ishes mightily, to the 
great disgust of many 
persons who believe such 
introduction harmful. 
The most familiar ex¬ 
amples of this sort of 
thing are the English 
sparrow in America, the 
mongoose i n the West 
Indian Islands, the rab¬ 
bit in Australia. Some¬ 
times the introduced 
species does not quite 
disappear, but maintains 
a precarious existence 
for many years. We 
fancy that the cats set 
free on Kerguelen Isl¬ 
and, which live in holes 
in the ground and feed 
on the seafowl, cannot 
much more than just propagate their race. 
The starling family is allied on the one hand 
to the crows and jays and on the other to the 
Ictendce, the group which contains some of our 
blackbirds, meadowlarks and orioles. Its dis¬ 
tribution is in the eastern hemisphere, though 
it is not found in Australia. To this group be¬ 
longs the rosy pastor found on the plains of 
Western Asia and sometimes occurring irregu¬ 
larly as far west as Switzerland. It winters 
commonly in India. A writer speaking of this 
species as seen in Syria says: “Once we came 
on a patch of some acres which had recently 
been visited by locusts. The old locusts were 
gone, but the young, not more ’than a quarter 
of an inch long, made the ground literally alive. 
They rose at every step of our horses like sand 
lice on the seashore from a sea weed left by the 
tide. Just after we had passed through this 
patch of devastating flight I turned my head 
and saw a great globe in the air. It suddenly 
turned, expanded, and like a vast fan descended 
to the ground. We waited a few minutes and 
saw acres covered with a moving black mass 
dappled with pink. In a short time the mass be¬ 
came restless and we rode back. The birds rose 
quietly, but not till we were close on them, and 
only those within dangerous distance. But not 
a young locust could be seen. The pastor had 
well earned its name of the ‘locust bird,’ and 
one batch of foes to man and his labors had 
been promptly and forever exterminated.” 
To this same family belongs the “ox pecker” 
( Bmpliaga ), so-called because of its habit of fre¬ 
quenting the backs of cattle and game in order 
to peck out the grubs which infest the animals. 
Like our own buffalo birds of old times they 
than a crow blackbird. The full-plumaged m^les 
are glossy black, the females not so glossy and 
the young very dark, almost slaty gray, but the 
whole plumage is dotted with lighter grayish 
marks on the extremities of the feathers which 
marks are usually gray or brown. In the adults 
the bill is white or yellow and the tail is notice¬ 
ably short. When on the wing the starling can 
always be distinguished from any other black¬ 
bird that we have by its short tail. The white 
bill is also very noticeable. So, if you see flying 
by a blackbird which moves its wings more 
rapidly than one of the ordinary blackbirds and 
seems to be bobtailed, you may feel sure that 
it is a starling. On the ground the starling walks 
like a crow, or a blackbird. It does not hop. 
We have known of one or two open spots 
in New York city which 
were once great breed¬ 
ing grounds for the 
brown beetle, commonly 
known as June bug, but 
which the starling in 
this locality extermi¬ 
nated after a few years. 
As yet no case at all 
appears to have been 
made out against the 
starling. Possibly he is 
harmful, possibly not. 
Let us wait and see 
what the ornithologists 
say about it. 
I 
common and Sardinian starlings (Stunius vulgaris and unicolor). y 2 NATURAL SIZE. 
spend much of their time resting on the animal’s 
heads and horns. Perhaps these may be the same 
birds called in other parts of Africa “rhino birds.’’ 
As yet we know nothing as to whether the 
starling is a useful or harmful American citizen. 
Unquestionably he is insectivorous to a large ex¬ 
tent and no doubt destroys many harmful in¬ 
sects, but perhaps he does some harm. He may 
be disapproved of by many persons as are the 
house sparrow, the German carp and the gray 
partridge. All these animals belong on the other 
side of the water, say those who object to them, 
but the other side of the water is where we all 
belong, or our forebear’s did, and it is too late 
now to try to keep America for the Americans. 
Not many of them are left. 
Questions recently put to us seem to indicate 
that many people do not know the starling when 
they see it. It is a black bird a little larger in 
body than a red-winged blackbird and smaller 
Passenger Pigeon 
Reported. 
New York City, Sept. 
21. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: On Sept. 20, 
1910, Captain Stephen E. 
Barteau and his brother- 
in-law, Mr. Rose, while 
driving along a country 
road at Brookhaven, L. 
started a passenger 
pigeon out of a) stubble, 
which flew across the 
road in front of them 
and lit in a tree. The 
bird was not forty feet 
from them and they had 
a perfectly clear view 
of it. Both at first thought it was a dove, but 
then realized that it was a wild pigeon. Cap¬ 
tain Barteau and Mr. Rose are both old gun¬ 
ners and perfectly familiar with the Carolina 
dove and have both killed wild pigeons in num¬ 
bers in years gone by. I hey both assert that 
there could be no doubt as to the identity of 
the bird. Robt. B. Lawrence. 
New Publications. 
Books Received: “Methods of Attracting 
Birds,” by Gilbert H. Trafton; Boston, Hough¬ 
ton Mifflin Company. “The Book of the Dry- 
fly,” by George A. B. Dewar; New York. The 
Macmillan Company. “The Conservation of 
NatUTal Resources in the United States,” by 
Charles R. Van Hise;' Macmillans. “Hunting 
the Sea Otter,” by Alexander Allan; London, 
Horace Cox. “Camp Cookery,” by Horace Kep- 
hart; New York, The Outing Company. 
