SPRAY OF THE EARTH 139 



that these latter should, hitherto, have resisted that 

 general movement which has robed each tree with 

 life, and made a music of the air ; but all at once, 

 with a whirring hurricane of wings, they rise like 

 brown spray of the earth, and, mounting above one 

 of the highest elms, come sweeping suddenly down 

 upon it, in the most violent and erratic manner, 

 whizzing and z-igz^agging about from side to side, as 

 they descend, and making a loud rushing sound 

 with the wings, which, as with rooks, who do the 

 same thing, is only heard on such occasions. They 

 do not stay long, and as all the flocks keep moving 

 onwards, the immediate fields and trees are soon 

 empty of birds. To follow their movements 

 farther, one must proceed with all haste towards 

 the roosting-place. About a mile's distance from 

 it, at the tail of a little village, there is a certain 

 meadow, emerald-green and dotted all over with 

 unusually fine tall elms. In these, their accustomed 

 last halting-place, the starlings, now in vast 

 numbers, are swarming and gathering in a much 

 more remarkable manner than has hitherto been 

 the case. It is, always, on the top of the tree that 

 they settle, and, the instant they do so, it becomes 

 suddenly brown, whilst there bursts from it, as 

 though from some great natural musical box, a 

 mighty volume of sound that is like the plash of 

 waters mingled with a sharper, steelier note — the 

 dropping of innumerable needles on a marble floor. 

 On a sudden the sing-song ceases, and there is a 

 great roar of wings, as the entire host swarm out 

 from the tree, make a wheel or half-wheel or two, 

 close about it, and then, as though unable to go 



