146 BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



fly, together, in silence, but besides the special note I 

 have mentioned, and which is totally unlike any of 

 their other ones, they often make a more ordinary 

 twittering noise. It is not loud, and does not seem 

 to be uttered by any large proportion of the birds, at 

 once. Still, their numbers being so great, the volume 

 of sound is often considerable ; and no one could 

 watch starlings going to roost, for long, without hear- 

 ing it. Those, therefore, who say that they always 

 fly in silence cannot have watched them for long. 



The final end and aim of all the gatherings, 

 flights, circlings, and " skiey " evolutions generally, 

 which are gone through by starlings, at the close of 

 each day, is, of course, the entry into that dark wood 

 where, in " numbers numberless," yet packed into a 

 wonderfully small space, they pass the night, clinging 

 beneath every leaf, like those dreams that Virgil 

 speaks of. This entry they accomplish in various 

 ways. Sometimes, but rarely, they descend out of the 

 brown firmament of their numbers, in one perpetual 

 rushing stream, which seems to be sucked down by 

 a reversed application of the principle on which the 

 column of a waterspout is sucked up from the 

 ocean. More often, however, they fly in, in detach- 

 ments ; or again, they will swarm into one of the 

 neighbouring hedges, forming, perhaps, the mutual 

 boundary of wood and meadow, and, commencing 

 at the remote end, move along it, flying and flutter- 

 ing, like an uproarious river of violent life and joy, 

 the wood at last receiving them. But should there 

 be another thicket or plantation, a field or so from 

 their chosen dormitory, it is quite their general 

 habit to enter this, first, and fly from it to the latter. 



