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NOTES TO THE 



hundreds of thousands, if not a million. And when we consider 

 that each parish on an average harbours in the summer not 

 more perhaps than twenty breeding pairs say, with the young 

 ones reared, 100 to each parish it must take a vast number of 

 parishes to make up the number collected at this centre every 

 night. As a fact, I have often noticed towards evening, when 

 some miles away from home, in whatever direction, flocks of 

 starlings pass overhead in the direction of Hargrave. I may 

 safely say that they fill a space, when all collected in one flock, of 

 three or four acres, plane space, and fifty to a hundred feet in 

 depth. They play all manner of aerial games round the neighbour- 

 hood for an hour before retiring to bed, and again on getting up 

 in the morning, before dispersing to the four winds for the day. 

 They wheel about in parties, or as a whole army, looking, in the 

 latter case from a mile distant like a cloud, sometimes in the 

 form of a great fish moving through the air, They gather on 

 trees in the proximity of the cover till they are black and the 

 branches bending down with the weight ; and the talking they 

 do is ceaseless and deafening. At a distance it sounds exactly 

 like the noise of a cascade pouring over rocks, and this talking 

 they continue long after they are gone to bed ; nor does it quite 

 cease till hours after dusk. I often wonder what they talk 

 about so fast, and all at once very likely of the events of the 

 day, the fine fat grubs they have enjoyed, and the dangers they 

 have escaped. At all events, they talk to us of a good Creator 

 who made such myriads of happy creatures, to whom existence 

 is one round of innocent mirth and active happiness, and of keen 

 and varied enjoyment from sunrise to sunset, summer and 

 winter. One night I listened whether the starlings subsided, in 

 the dead of night, into perfect stillness. It was a moonlight 

 night, between twelve and one a.m. So far from being still, I 

 could hear their chatter still going on from my house, 300 yards 

 from the fox cover, and on walking up to the coverside the 

 murmur of a million sleeping starlings was curious to hear. It 

 was like a subdued faint roar, mixed with the clear whistle of 

 individual starlings. Starlings are possessed of great vital 

 powers, and also muscular strength for their size. Watch them 

 in the breeding season. Every spare minute they have is devoted 

 to merry chuckling, chirping, whistling, and grimacing. They 

 seem to me to be always laughing to themselves, and they have 

 the power of the mocking-bird in imitating other birds. I have 

 heard a wild starling imitate for fun the plaintive cry of a lap- 

 wing to perfection, also the chatter of an angry magpie, or the 

 caw of a carrion crow. I have a respect for the starlings. They 

 do no harm, except pulling the thatch about, and eating a few 



