STARLINGS. 233 



existence depended upon it. All however in good social 

 harmony, never quarrelling with the shy and less intru- 

 sive Thrush or Blackbird; or with the lively Wagtails, 

 contenting themselves with the lighter fare of the my- 

 riads of minute flies and beetles hovering over the fresh- 

 mown turf. 



The noise and bustle go on incessantly, till the young 

 ones are fledged, when for a day or two they may be 

 seen fluttering about the building, or taking short flights. 

 At length, their strength being matured, old and young 

 collect on the tower, and then wheel away over the 

 neighbouring fields, as if practising for future and more 

 important evolutions. But still the evening finds them, 

 roosting near the place of their birth. At last, however, 

 a day comes when all is hushed. No hungry guests are 

 feasting on the lawn, no clamorous throats are calling 

 aloud for food, no twitterings are heard from bough or 

 battlement, not even a straggler is to be seen on the 

 pinnacle of the weather-cock. 



The joyous assembly is broken up. The Starlings 

 are gone*, and till the Autumn, with scarcely an excep- 

 tion, we shall see them no more. Then, about the third 

 week in September, again on their favourite perch, the 

 weather-cock, one, or two, or three, may chance to 

 appear towards evening, not with the merry note of 

 Spring, but uttering that monotonous, plaintive, long- 

 drawn, whistling cry, as cheerless as the cheerless season 

 for which they seem to bid us prepare. That these, and 

 the few other stragglers occasionally occupying the same 

 post, are our Spring friends is most probable; for a lame 

 Starling was observed for eight years to return to the 

 same nest, and every observation we have made tends to 

 prove that this is a general instinctive custom of, we 

 believe, every bird whatever. 



* The abandonment of their breeding-place depends, of course, upon 

 the season. In 1833, the month of May having been remarkably warm, 

 it occurred on the sixth of June; but we have known it to be delayed till 

 the second week in July; the whole of June having been very unseason- 

 able and stormy. 



