MYXAS, STARLINGS, ETC. 83 



probabl}' he doesn't. His drill is instinctive or intuitive, 

 done "without thinking," as old sergeants declare all good 

 drill is. But in a starling army there might be five hundred, 

 five thousand, or five hundred thousand. Numbers made no 

 difference, so far as I ever saw, for the wheeling, the 

 "countermarching", thedispersions,and re-assemblings were 

 all done as though every bird were fixed in the air at its 

 respective distance from every other, and could not "lose 

 ground" if it tried. Now a moment's consideration will 

 suffice to show the marvel of this wondrous precision, for 

 whilstsome birds in a flock have to circle round a few yards, 

 others have to go perhaps a hundred times as far in the same 

 time in order to keep line with their own set, just as in the 

 "wheel" of a long line of cavalry, tbe outer horses have to 

 gallop their hardest whilst the pivot man marks time. But 

 these are birds! Who taught them? Who appointed their 

 officers? How are their orders given? How understood? 



These are questions which no man has answered. The 

 facts we have before our eyes, and all that one cares to remark 

 about them is that they ought to make even the drilled man 

 more modest, whilst the undrilled should hide his unwilling 

 head and clumsy feet for very shame. But, notwithstanding 

 all this philosophic digression, it is unfortunate for us that 

 in this part of China we have no starlings of the species 

 above named — Sfuniiis vulgaris — with his acuminate breast 

 feathers, his metallic sheen, and his sprightly ways. There 

 are starlings in China, but in this, and, I believe, in all the 

 parts farther south, they are different in species. There is the 

 grey starling {Stitnuis cinereus), of which Pere David says, 

 ** Enautomneet en hiver, il serepand en troupes innombrables 

 sur toute I'etendue de 1' Empire." In spite of this, however, it 

 has not been mj' fortune to come across these immense numbers 

 in this neighbourhood. That may be for want of sufficient 

 inducement due to lack of the Sopliora Japonica on whose 

 branches Pere David says they find a favourite food. The 

 next province — Chekiang — has another very charming 

 species, the white-headed starling (S. Sericeiis), which, unlike 

 some of its cousins, is not a wanderer. Some of the starling 

 friends of my youth remained with us all the year, but many 

 migrate. The habits of the bird of Chekiang vary little from 

 those of its common European relative, though in plumage 

 they are entirely different. 



An allied genus is that of the starlets — Teinemichus. Two 

 species are shown in the museum — T. Sinensis, the Chinese 

 starlet, and T. Dauricus, the Daurian starlet, but so far as 

 I know, neither comes within reach of Shanghai. They 

 spend the winter in S. E. Asia coming northwards to the 

 western parts of China for the breeding season. 



