102 XOTES ON THE BRITISH STARLING. 



that I know of that showed such a large amount of brain power 

 as the starling. This was not even excluding the ordinary rook, 

 which was a xery wise bird in its way. Everyone of them must 

 have noticed when the starlings are foraging in the fields along 

 with rooks, lapwings, thrushes, etc., how quickly the starling can 

 take alarm an(] rise at almost anything that might disturb them. 

 Half-a-minute later the rooks and the others get up, but mean- 

 while the starlings had found out that the alarm was needless, 

 and down they went, long before the rooks had settled down 

 where they were before, showing an acuteness of intellect which 

 was most admirable. Along with this great increase of starlings 

 there was a great amount of variability setting in. This was not 

 born of an\- of our native British starlings, because along the 

 east coast of Great Britain the great majority of starlings show 

 the characteristics of the continental and western Asiatic breed. 



Mr Service then showed from a number of stuffed specimens 

 of the bird the differences in plumage, and said that one could 

 trace from the plumage how many continental birds were coming 

 here and how many home-bred birds might be amongst them. It 

 was a verv common observation that one male and two females 

 would have two nests, each female having one nest, and the male 

 watching over them and feeding the young ones indiscriminately. 

 He attributed this to the over-population of the starling tribe. 

 There were not sufficient males to go round, and the bird was 

 such an energetic one that it did not see the good of wasting a 

 season because it could not get a male to itself. The young birds 

 went off on the migration just as soon as they found their wings 

 sufficiently strong to bear them. Xo one could have any idea of 

 the huge numbers in which these birds took their first flight. 

 Later on these young ones took the first flight, and there w^as a 

 pretty long interval of two or three weeks before the others 

 appeared. When September and October came the flights of 

 starlings that gathered along the meadow lands were enormous, 

 and there was nothing more fascinating than to watch flocks of 

 starlings gathering together and preparing for migration. At that 

 time they showed a strong tendency to rise in the air, and w-hen 

 dusk set in you saw these birds circuling wider and wider and 

 closer together until you lost sight of them. No doubt thev were 

 high up in the air, and looking for a current of air that would 

 least impede their flight to the continent, and no doubt by the 



