236 STURNIDJE. 



alight upon them, as though they had been subjected to 

 some mechanical process.* Fir-plantations are also a 

 favourite haunt, as well as shrubberies of holly, ilex and the 

 like, and this work is indebted to the late Dean Goodenough 

 for the following account! of perhaps the largest Starling- 

 roost in England, as it existed some years ago, on the pro- 

 perty of the late Mr. Miles at King's Weston near Bristol : 

 — " This locality is an evergreen plantation of arbutus, 

 laurustinus, &c, covering some acres, to which these birds 

 repair in an evening — I was going to say, and I believe I 

 might with truth say — by millions, from the low grounds 

 about the Severn, where their noise and stench are some- 

 thing altogether unusual. By packing in such myriads 

 upon the evergreens, they have stripped them of their leaves, 

 except just at the tops, and have driven the Pheasants, for 

 whom the plantation was intended, quite away from the 

 ground. In the day-time, when the birds are not there, 

 the stench is still excessive. Mr. Miles was about to cut 

 the whole plantation down to get rid of them, two years ago, 

 but I begged him not to do so on account of the curiosity of 

 the scene, and he has since been well pleased that he 

 abstained." 



Another similar and perhaps larger congregation has been 

 described by Mr. Ball, who, in 1845, stated that from 

 150,000 to 200,000 Starlings were computed to roost, every 

 night between the end of October and the end of March, in 



* The calamity is aggravated by the fact that a reed, which can sustain the 

 weight of perhaps two or three Starlings, breaks when as many more attempt to 

 perch upon it. Then all these have to try a fresh stem, which in its turn gives 

 way, and so on until the birds have injured far more reeds than would suffice to 

 scat the whole flock comfortably but for their disorderly crowding. But the evil 

 can be and generally is averted by vaiious expedients such as the firing of guns 

 to scare away the collecting myriads, while the discharge of rockets, after the 

 birds have found a resting-place, is not without its use as a means of driving 

 them from their haunt. The uproar caused by a night-alarm of this kind is 

 indescribable. 



+ This account was published in the First Edition of this work in 1839. It 

 appears that the present proprietor not appreciating the almost unique privilege 

 (so far as England is concerned) keeps the evergreens cut low, and so deprives the 

 Starlings of their roosting-place. 



