100 THE BOOK OF MIGRATORY BIRDS 



In the suburbs the starling is nearly always conspicuous, 

 for the reason, no doubt, that he is reluctant to leave the 

 locality in which he may have been bred. Then the 

 encouragement given to tree life nowadays is an induce- 

 ment to the starling, as to other birds, to continue to abide 

 in umbrageous Suburbia. At a given period, Leazes 

 Park, Newcastle, is one of the largest starling -roosting 

 retreats I have ever come across. It has been thus used 

 by the birds for more years than one cares to count, and 

 every year the demand for space grows more clamant. 

 Here birds of many varieties are found all the year round, 

 but in autumn this delightful retreat for a time becomes 

 in a special sense the abode of the starling. There is 

 hardly a tree or branch that is not requisitioned for the 

 nocturnal perch. The starlings use the place for roosting 

 only. The noisy roosters prefer other feeding quarters. 

 Birds in fact seldom feed and roost in the same place, 

 many of them flying miles morning and night between 

 the two resorts. 



There is only one period of the year when the enclosure 

 is absolutely free of starlings, and that is the nesting 

 season ; but fairly large flocks of birds have been known 

 to remain throughout the summer, hovering about the 

 locality restlessly, but never aiming to clear out and find 

 partners as the great bulk of their fellows had done. That 

 these stragglers did not nest suggests an interesting 

 ornithological problem that one can only answer by 

 assuming an inequality of the sexes, resulting in a number 

 of the birds going about unmated. Such a contingency 

 is as conceivable among birds as among the human race ; 

 ft may be taken for granted, at any rate, that neither 

 starlings nor other birds would be found living en famille 

 in the nesting season unless there was some insuperable 

 difficulty compelling them to spend their days in single 

 blessedness. 



The most popular roosting site in this park is a clump 

 of trees on the island in the centre of the top lake. At 

 one time the birds found here all the accommodation they 



