STARLINGS. tit 



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 prac- 

 tising for future and more important evolutions. But still the 

 evening finds them roosting near the place of their birth. At 

 last, however, a day conies 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 battle- 

 ment, not even a straggler is to be seen on the pinnacle of the 

 weathercock. 



The joyous assembly is broken up. The Starlings are 

 gone,* and till the autumn, with scarcely an exception, we 

 shall see. them no more. Then, about the third week in Sep- 

 tember, again on their favourite perch, the weathercock, 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 cheer- 

 less season for which they seem to bid us to 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. 



Having thus given some report of our Starlings for the 

 greater part of the year, we will endeavour to follow the main 

 body for the remaining months, as yet unaccounted for. To 

 do this effectually would be no easy matter, as we believe that 

 they are partially migratory, i.e., quitting one part of the king- 

 dom for another more fitted for their usual mode of life : never- 

 theless, enough remain within the sphere of our observation, 

 and are to be met with in little flocks during the summer in 

 favourite meadows, where food is plentiful, associating with 

 their old friends, the Crows, Rooks, and Jackdaws. 



* 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 6th of June ; but we have known it to be delayed 

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

 seasonable and stormy. 



