152 BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



If anything lies in the way of the starlings, dur- 

 ing this, their last flight, to the dormitory — as, 

 say, a hedge — the whole mass of them, in perfect 

 order and unison, will, as they pass it, increase their 

 elevation, though why, as they were well above 

 it before, one cannot quite say. However they 

 do so, and the brown speeding cloud that they 

 make, whirling aloft and flashing into various 

 sombre lights against the darkening sky, has a fine 

 stormy eff^ect. It would make the name of any 

 landscape painter, could he put on canvas the stir 

 and spirit of these living storms and clouds that 

 fill, each morning and evening, a vast part of the 

 heavens with their hurrying armies, adding the 

 poetry of life to elemental poetry, putting a heart- 

 beat into sky and air. Were Turner alive, now, I 

 would write to him of these wondrous sights ; for, 

 unless he despaired, surely he can never have seen 

 them. He who gave us *' Wind, steam, and speed " 

 might, had he known, have given us a ** Sky, air, 

 and life," to hang, for ever (if the trustees would 

 let it) on the walls of the National Gallery. But 

 who, now, is there to write to ? Who could give us 

 not only the thing, but the spirit of the thing — the 

 wild, fine poetry of these starling-flights ? It is 

 strange how much poetry lies in mere numbers, how 

 they speak to the heart. What were one starling, 

 winging its way to rest, or even a dozen or so ^ But 

 all this great multitude filled with one wish, one 

 longing, one intent — so many little hearts and wings 

 beating all one way ! It is like a cry going up from 

 nature herself; the very air seems to yearn and pant 

 for rest. And yet there is the precise converse of 



