THE STARLING. 99 



to his plumage that it was quite a pleasure to look 

 at him. 



Whenever "Jack" caught sight of me in the garden, 

 or even heard my voice, he would dash about the 

 aviary calling lustily, and when I went in would fly 

 on my head, creep all over me, and allow me no peace 

 till I had given him his usual treat of mealworms. Fruit 

 of all kinds and green peas were also favourite morsels 

 of his, and I was reluctantly forced to admit that he 

 might, lacking other food, do a little damage in a 

 garden. On the other hand there is no doubt he does 

 an immensity of good there, where few insects are more 

 destructive than the ugly, legless grub of the apparently 

 harmless fly popularly known as the " daddy longlegs", 

 which is nevertheless a most pernicious creature, but 

 the Starlings catch it very cleverly, driving their long 

 bills into the maggot's burrow and invariably drawing 

 it out in triumph. 



Mealworms I found were a somewhat costly diet* 

 and I had to look about for a substitute, which I was 

 not long in finding in the imported German ants' eggs. 

 "Jack" would rapidly pick up any quantity of these, 

 and dry and worthless as they looked, they agreed 

 with him remarkably well, as also did the gentles 

 which I bred in the covered-in portion of the aviary 

 in a large earthenware crock with a lid smaller than 

 itself which rested on the bran and chaff that I had 

 put into it, so as to leave about an inch of the 



