264 AUTUMN AND WINTER 



which they feed by day, and form some of the most remark- 

 able spectacles in bird life. The flocks of starlings are usually 

 by far the largest. A little before sunset on September 

 evenings we often see nights of starlings, ranging from several 

 hundreds to parties often oradozen, collectingfrom all quarters 

 on some small wood or conspicuous group of trees. Every 

 minute fresh flocks fly in, till the trees are black with them, 

 and the lesser boughs nod with their weight ; and all the 

 while they utter a chiding murmur which becomes louder 

 and louder as the swarms increase. Suddenly they spring 

 swiftly into the air together with a roar of wings which is 

 sometimes as loud as the early growlings of a thunder-peal, 

 and vanish swiftly towards their roost. They choose for this 

 some dense plantation of rhododendrons or other evergreens, 

 or a close-grown thicket of thorns, or sometimes a large reed 

 or osier bed. The scene at this central meeting-place when 

 the contributory flocks come pouring in from all quarters is 

 almost indescribable. The surge of the incoming armies is 

 almost continuous, but it is half-drowned by the tumult of the 

 birds settling to rest among the boughs. High above the 

 thicket the starlings check their flight, and plunge headlong 

 downward with the wild motion of a broken kite, checking 

 themselves just in time to alight safely in the branches. As 

 twilight deepens the tumult ceases, and the host of birds falls 

 asleep. But it is long before they cease to stir and rumble 

 in the heart of the thicket at any slight alarm ; and the least 

 disturbance produces a murmur in the almost solid mass 

 which is extraordinarily impressive in its suggestion of teem- 

 ing life. The odour of these roosting-places indicates them 

 plainly by day ; and evergreen thickets are sometimes 

 stripped half-bare of their leaves by the pressure of the in- 

 numerable birds. These roosting-places are abandoned by 

 the great majority of their winter inmates when the flocks 



