io By Leafy Ways. 



At first sight he may seem a dull and sombre bird 

 enough, of no special colouring, and slender claim to 

 beauty ; and the city starling, like most town birds, is 

 no doubt generally more or less tinged with the soot 

 of his usual surroundings. But at this season of the 

 year, wherever he may be perched upon the smoke- 

 blackened gable of a London roof or swaying on the 

 topmost spray of the noble elm that overshadows the 

 ancient homestead he is in his nuptial dress ; and 

 when the sunshine, flashing on his glossy plumage, 

 heightens the changing lustre of the exquisite gorget 

 of pointed green and purple plumes upon his silken 

 breast, lights up the brown lines in his wings, the 

 countless touches of white and amber scattered like 

 points of flame over his burnished feathers, it were safe 

 to say that few British birds wear a more brilliant 

 livery than the common starling. 



He is a bird that everyone may watch who will. 

 He haunts the narrow grass-plot of the dingy city as 

 well as the broad meadow of the open country ; he 

 wanders by the windy sea, or on the upland pasture ; 

 he finds shelter in a niche of the cathedral turret, or 

 by the river in the whispering reeds. His home is 

 everywhere. He has well been styled a Citizen of 

 the World. 



Starlings have not always been so widely dispersed. 

 There are parts of the country where old inhabitants 

 say that they were scarce half a century ago ; but of 

 late years they have spread very rapidly. 



