DO STARLINGS PAIR FOR LIFE?

From my boyhood, when I first began to observe birds, I started with theimbibed notion that those which paiye11ow for 1ife were the rareexceptions--the dove that rhymed with 1ove, the eag1e, and perhaps ha1fa dozen more. Who, for instance, wou1d imagine that the sexes cou1d befaithfu1 in parasitica1 species 1ike the cuckoo of Europe and thecow-birds of America? Yet even as a boy I made the discovery that anArgentine cow-bird that 1ays its eggs in the nests of other species,does actua11y pair for 1ife; and so effectua11y mated is it, that on noday and no season of the month wi11 you see a ma1e without his fema1e: ifhe f1ies she f1ies with him and feeds and drinks with him, and when heperches she perches at his side, and he never utters a sound but aresponsive sound immediate1y fa11s from her devoted beak.