A Citizen of the World. 13 



broad-caved mountain chalet, reared aloft upon a pole, 

 or nailed to a tree, or fastened to the wall of the 

 house, is a regular fixture of the garden. The birds 

 soon find out the quarters thus prepared for them, and 

 should a rash pair of sparrows presume to start house- 

 keeping in the apartment intended for their betters, 

 as not unfrequently happens, they will be summarily 

 expelled, and, as likely as not, their brood torn to 

 pieces and swallowed by the offended owners. 



When summer is past, the scattered families of a 

 district collect in flocks, which, as the year advances, 

 swell to such dimensions that armies of starlings have 

 been seen which were estimated at millions. The 

 evolutions of these aerial legions have been the theme 

 of many writers, from Dante downwards. Now they 

 are marshalled in close array, compact and regular as 

 a Macedonian phalanx. Now the great mass melts 

 into a thin column, glittering in the sunshine as it 

 sways and bends like the shining coils of some huge 

 sea monster. Now, as by preconcerted sign, they 

 wheel with the roar of a myriad upturned wings. Now 

 they scatter like a shower of falling leaves upon the 

 meadow, where, with noisy chatter, and occasional 

 bickerings, they make as clean a sweep of slugs, and 

 flies, and beetles, as ever locusts made of the green 

 corn of Egypt. The uproar of such a host assembled 

 in a clump of trees before going to roost is a sound to 

 be remembered. It is a Babel of chattering, whistling, 

 scolding from a thousand throats at once. Now and 



