A " MURMURATION " OF StARLINCS 



CHAPTER VI 



Starlings are not birds to make part of an olla 

 podrida merely — as in my last chapter — so I shall 

 devote this one to them, more or less entirely. I 

 will begin with a defence of the bird, in regard to 

 his relations with the green woodpecker. Not, 

 indeed, that he can be acquitted on the main charge 

 brought against him, viz. that he appropriates to 

 himself the woodpecker's nest. This he certainly 

 does do, and his conduct in so doing has aroused a 

 good deal of indignation, not always, perhaps, of the 

 most righteous kind. The compassionate oologist, 

 more especially, who may have found only starling's 

 eggs where he thought to find woodpecker's, can- 

 not speak patiently on the subject. His feelings 

 run away with him, in face of such an injustice. 

 The woodpecker is being wronged — -by the starling ; 



