Reserved Section of Hell
| The Starling |
| If I became governor of Hell I would reserve a special room for Eugene Schieffelin and his minions in the North American Acclimatization Society, the idiots who thought it would be nice for all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare's works to be represented in America. In the 1890's he released just over a hundred starlings. Because of one single line in Henry IV, an estimated 200 million of the aggressive little bastards currently occupy North America, wreaking havoc on native bird populations. |
| Why such antipathy for these morons? Why not put in Etienne Trouvelot (who introduced Gypsy Moths) or whoever shipped the wood that contained the fungus that annihilated the American Chestnut? Because Schiefflin and his cronies went out of their way to perpetrate their crime, and for a silly reason. |
| European Starling. |
| I'll Have a Starling. |
| A report on Starlings from National Public Radio. |