336 



nsTEODTJCTION TO ZOOLOGY. 



left some distant place at an early hour." The greatest num- 

 ber ever seen in one day in their course of flight, amounted to 

 1500 ; and the entire number thus seen during the migratory 

 period, to about 15,000. 



Mr. Yarrell mentions localities in which these birds con- 

 gregate by thousands ; in one case in the vicinity of Bristol, 

 by millions. Their food consists of worms, insects, snails, 

 berries, and grain. They build in ruins, old trees, church- 

 steeples, rocks, and holes about buildings ; and Mr. Ball has 

 remarked, that the celebrated round towers of Ireland are 

 favourite nesting-places. The evolutions of a large body of 

 Starlings before retiring to rest have been so graphically de- 

 scribed in the "Familiar History of Birds," that it would be 

 doing injustice to the learned and right reverend author, not 

 to give the words there employed. 



" At first they might be seen advancing high in the air, 

 like a dark cloud, which in an instant, as if by magic, became 

 almost invisible, the whole body, by some mysterious watch- 

 word or signal, changing their 

 course, and presenting their 

 wings to view edgeways, in- 

 stead of exposing, as before, 

 their full expanded spread. 

 Again, in another moment, 

 the cloud might be seen de- 

 scending in a graceful sweep, 

 so as almost to brush the earth 

 as they glanced along. Then 

 once more they were seen 

 spiring in wide circles on high, 

 till at length with one simul- 

 taneous rush down they ghde, 

 with a roaring noise of wing, 

 till its vast mass buried itself 

 unseen, but not unheard, amid 

 a bed of reeds projecting from 

 the bank, adjacent to the 

 wood. For no sooner were 



Fig. 268.— Bird of Paradise. 



they perched than every throat seemed to open itself, forming 

 one incessant confusion of tongues." 



This is perhaps the place where reference may be made to 

 the Birds of Paradise (Fig. 268), which, according to Eastern 



