8 JUNE 1901, Page 14

THE STARLING.

[TO THR EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR:1

Sin,—With reference to the merits of the starling as a destroyer in this country of mischievous insects, as pointed out in one of the interesting letters in last week's Spectator, may I be allowed to draw attention to the fact that the starling is the famous locust-bird of the East ? I well remember some forty years ago, when I was an Assistant. Commissioner in a Punjab district suffering from locusts, the satisfaction with which a native told me that their great enemy, the " tilia," had come. Being anxious to know what the " tilia " was, I had one caught and brought to me, and at once identified it as the starling. I thought it the same as