10 LONDON BIRDS 



Starlings build in numbers in the hollow trees ; and, 

 with a few grey-headed Jackdaws, and poor ill-used 

 Rooks, make themselves generally at home among the 

 sheep, and are as talkative and merry as in the reed 

 beds on the Norfolk broads. 



Londoners cannot all have the opportunity of 

 seeing for themselves the most characteristic sight of 

 the Fen countries in autumn the mamBuvres of the 

 great armies of Starlings which towards sunset collect 

 at chosen places from far and near to gossip and roost 

 in the reed-beds. But the evening assemblies of these 

 pre-eminently sociable birds, in the little cover on the 

 peninsula in St. James's Park, are well worth watching, 

 though we cannot hope to rival the thirty solid 

 acres of starlings recorded in Stevenson's Birds of 

 Norfolk, or the great country flocks whose rhythmical 

 movements have often been a subject of remark. 



Apart from such comparisons, the numbers which, 

 during the autumn and winter months, true to the 

 appointed hour, from 3.45 to 4.15 P.M., arrive in the 

 park in packs, some from one point of the compass, 

 some from another, others, to all appearance, dropping 

 straight down from the sky, are, the surroundings 

 considered, scarcely less astonishing, nor are their per- 

 fectly concerted flights and incessant merry chatter 

 less beautiful and interesting to watch. 



An attempt was made one November evening, with 

 the help of the late keeper Reiley, to form some idea of 

 the numbers coming in to roost on the peninsula. 

 Anything like an exact count was impossible, but an 



