Hurry, skurry through the air
Leaves are falling everywhere.
Gold and crimson meet or miss
Smile or blush at the frost king’s kiss.
Whirling, twirling, o’er the ground,
Forced by merry winds around;
Piled by childish hands on high,
There, like martyred saints, to die.
Crackle crackle, sound their knells,
Imprisoned sunshine in them dwells
Like tiny tongues, ’twixt earth and sky
They whisper love to passers by.
Falling, ever falling, they,
Consumed to make the world more gay;
The misty cloud of smoke o’erhead
Seems like the veil Shakina spread.
Down and down comes memory’s leaf,
Bright with hopes or sere with grief;
The brightest one in life’s huge pile
Is that from which our bonfires smile.
—Cora May Cratty.
[Illustration: STARLING.
(Sturnus vulgaris).
⅔ Life-size.
FROM COL. CHI. ACAD. SCIENCES.]
THE STARLING.
(_Sturnus vulgaris_.)
The Starling belongs to an interesting family of birds, represented in
America by but one species and that one only recently introduced. In the
Old World, however, there are about two hundred species which are widely
distributed throughout Europe, Asia and Africa.
The common Starling is a native of Europe and northern Asia and is
admitted to the bird fauna of North America both because of its
accidental occurence in Greenland and of its introduction into the parks
of New York city. Regarding its introduction into this country, Mr.
Chapman says that it has been brought across the ocean on several
occasions, but only in the case of the last importation was the effort
to make it establish a home within our borders a success. “The birds
included in this lot, about sixty in number, were released in Central
Park, New York city, in 1890. They seem to have left the park and to
have established themselves in various favorable places in the upper
part of the city. They have bred for three successive years in the roof
of the Museum of Natural History and at other points in the vicinity. In
the suburbs about the northern end of the city they are frequently
observed in flocks containing as many as fifty individuals.” From the
fact that it is a resident throughout the year and has endured our most
severe winters Mr. Chapman thinks that the species may be regarded as
thoroughly naturalized.
The common Starling easily adapts itself to its environment and can
withstand quite a diversity of climatic conditions. However, while it
was introduced with difficulty in the eastern United States, efforts
made to introduce it into the State of Oregon have not met with success.
Wherever the conditions are favorable it breeds rapidly and not
uncommonly a pair will rear two broods in a season.
This engaging bird has commanded the attention of observers for
centuries. Pliny speaks of it in his Natural History, and one writer has
said that “its varied song, its sprightly gestures, its glossy plumage,
and, above all its character as an insecticide—which last makes it a
friend of the agriculturist and the grazier—render it an almost
universal favorite.” Some of the notes of the Starling’s song are harsh
but on the whole the song is pleasing and “heard as they are, at a
season when every sign of returning spring is eagerly looked for and
welcomed, are certainly one of the most cheerful sounds that greet the
ear.” Its whole energy is thrown into the song, which is uttered with
ruffled feathers. It is also a mimic of no mean order. One authority
says that it delights “in reproducing familiar sounds with the greatest
fidelity to truth. We have heard individual Starlings reproduce the call
notes of the skylark, goldfinch, wagtail, and other small birds;
sometimes we have been startled on a winter’s day to recognize 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 neighboring chimney top.” Pliny says: “Agrippina,
the wife of Claudius Caesar, had a thrush that could imitate the human
speech, a thing that was never known before. At the moment that I am
writing this, the young Caesars have a Starling and some nightingales
that are being taught to talk in Greek and Latin; besides which, they
are studying their task the whole day, continually repeating the new
words that they have learnt, and giving utterance to phrases even of
considerable length.” The young birds are very noisy and while feeding
and training them the parents are scarcely less so. So great, in fact,
is this noisy babble that it often becomes very unpleasant.
The Starling is a gregarious bird at all times, but this habit is more
marked after the breeding season has passed. It has its favorite haunts
and, though a flock may be dispersed during the daytime while feeding,
all will congregate in the favorite locality at nightfall. Mr. William
Yarrell, in his “British Birds,” gives an interesting anecdote regarding
the abundance and social habits of the Starling. Speaking of an English
estate, he says, “This locality is an evergreen plantation covering
several acres, to which these birds repair in an evening—I was going to
say, and I believe I might truly say—by millions, from the low ground
about the Severn, where their noise is something altogether unusual. By
packing in such myriads upon the evergreens, they have stripped them of
their leaves, except just at the tops, and have driven the pheasants,
for whom the plantation was intended, quite away from the grounds.”
Regarding their nesting and mating habits Mr. Henry Seebohm says: “Early
in April, sometimes not until the beginning of May, the Starlings have
mostly mated and gone to their breeding holes. Previous to this,
however, much quarreling goes on for the choice of suitable sites. The
strong gain the best holes, while the weak seek quarters elsewhere. The
Starling will build its nest almost anywhere, and it needs but slight
encouragement to take up its quarters in any suitable hole or box placed
for its reception. It will even dislodge large tiles and burrow
considerable distances under the eaves, and its bulky nest often stops
up some spout, to the dismay of the householder. A hole in the gable or
inside the dovecot are also favorite places, while its partiality for
holes in the trees is none the less. It also commonly breeds in ruins,
churches, and old masonry of every description. In the wilder portions
of the country the Starling selects a hole either in a tree or a rock
for its purpose, and it will often breed in great numbers in caves or in
crevices of the ocean cliffs.” The nest is not a fine piece of bird
architecture. It is coarse and slovenly constructed with dry grass,
fibers, twigs, small roots, rags, twine, paper and in fact of any
substance that strikes the fancy of the bird. It is lined, though not
always, with wool, vegetable down and feathers. At times when the nest
is placed in hollow trees the bedding consists of powdered wood. The
Starling returns to the same site year after year, but always builds a
new nest.
Though the Starling will often pilfer fruit trees, especially late in
the season, it is of great service to man, for its chief food consists
of worms, larvae and various adult insects. It is a voracious feeder and
thus destroys a large number of forms of insect life, many of which are
very destructive to plant life. It “is almost as closely associated with
man as the sparrow,” but unlike the sparrow it is much more able to
adapt itself to a change of surroundings.