backs, and then the white breasts are turned towards one. But 
flights such as this are to be seen only during the autumn and 
winter months. For during the breeding season these little 
flocks are broken up and distributed far and wide. But there is 
yet another reason. They wear a totally different dress—the 
courtship or breeding plumage. Herein the upper parts are of a 
rich chestnut hue, streaked with black, while the under parts are 
black. Even more fascinating to watch are the autumn troops of 
starlings on the way to their roosting places. Hundreds at a 
time, not to say thousands, take part in these flights. Now they 
rush onward, in one great far-flung sheet, and now they close up 
into a great, almost ball-like, mass: and now they thin out till 
they look like a trail of smoke. But always they wheel and turn 
and rise and descend, not as separate bodies, but as one. How are 
such wonderful evolutions timed. The movements of an army 
on review-day are not more precise, or more perfectly carried 
out. During the whole flight not a sound, save the swishing 
of their wings can be heard. The marvel of it all is beyond the 
range of words, nor can one express the peculiar delight such a 
sight affords. 
Why is it that ducks and geese commonly fly either in Indian 
file, or in a roughly V-shaped formation, with the apex of the V 
forward ? Why do they not fly all abreast ? One cannot say, 
but they never do. 
