SOME BIRD NOTABILITIES 235 



thing. In this he is very different from the 

 parrot tribe, which never, so far as I have 

 seen or heard, exercise their mocking powers 

 when they are wild ; they have to be put in 

 prison to make them use their abilities. Then 

 the starling, with our help, has been a most 

 successful colonist ; he is really a bird of 

 Europe and the temperate parts of Asia, but 

 he has been taken to Australia, New Zealand, 

 and North America, and got on well every- 

 where. 



It is fortunate that he is generally a useful 

 bird, perhaps the most useful wild bird in the 

 world ; but at any rate, with our help or 

 without it, he can make his way, and is already, 

 most likely, the commonest bird in Britain, 

 and very likely to be the commonest bird in 

 the world. There is always something new to 

 be found out about his notes and habits, and 

 so we have in him a bird notability who is 

 always with us, and not the least worthy of 

 study of all the many birds of which I have 

 tried to say something in these few chapters. 



