[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SD1,—I can corroborate the statements in your article on the above subject in the Spectator of May 25th respecting the mimicking propensities of the starling. When I was a small boy a starling took to mimicking a most peculiar whistle that my father adopted to call his greyhounds. Thinking there was a prospect of sport, I used to answer this whistle as well as the greyhounds, but on several occasions only to find it coming from a starling perched at the top of a tall poplar; he made a fool of me several times, and I shall never forget it, and I believe he enjoyed the joke. But I must now distinctly contradict the statement that starlings "have never developed a taste for devouring corn." I thought this was the case until quite recently, but have lately found out my mistake to my cost, having had twenty acres of wheat almost entirely destroyed by them in 1899, and during the last three or four years we have had the greatest difficulty in saving the crop just as it is coming through the ground, owing to the depre- dations of countless starlings: there is no mistake about this, we shot them and found the wheat in their crops. It is only recently that I have discovered this, and Monmouthshire starlings may be worse than others, but I assert that they are most destructive to young wheat in this county.—! am, Sir, The Duffryn, Newport, Mon. R. STRATTON.
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