^'FERVET OPUS" 155 



" Fervet opus^^' as Virgil says of the bees. Greater 

 and greater becomes the excitement, more and more 

 deafening the noise, till, as though reaching the 

 boiling-point, a great mass of the birds is flung off, 

 or tears itself from the rest, and goes streaming 

 away over the tree-tops. The pot has boiled over : 

 that, rather than an act of volition, is what it looks 

 like. There is a roar, thousands rise together, but 

 the greater part remain. It is as though, from 

 some great nature-bowl of dancing, bubbling wine, 

 the most volatile, irrepressible particles — the very 

 top sparkles — went whirling joyously away ; or as 

 though each successive flight out were a cloud of 

 spray, thrown off from the same great wave. It will 

 thus be seen that the starlings fly out of their bed- 

 room, as they fly into it, in successive bodies, namely, 

 and not in one cloud, all together. 



In the plantation are many fair-sized young trees, 

 but it is only now, when the birds have begun to fly, 

 that they may be seen dashing into them. They 

 have been empty before, standing like uninhabited 

 islands amidst an ocean of life. When roosting, 

 starlings seem to eschew trees that are at all larger 

 than saplings, or whose tops project much above the 

 level of the undergrowth. Tall, thin, flexible bushes 

 — such as hazel or thorn — closely set together, seem 

 to be what they demand for a sleeping-place. They 

 sit on or near the tops of these, and it is obvious 

 that a climbing animal, of any size — say a cat or a 

 pole-cat — would find it difficult, or impossible, to run 

 up them, and would be sure to sway or shake the 

 stem, even if it succeeded. Whether this has had 

 anything to do, through a long course of natural 



