THE STARLING 117 



In any account of the daily arrival of starlings at their roost 

 allowance must be made for considerable variation. The procedure 

 is not fixed. If, for instance, there are trees or hedges near the 

 roost, the flocks will on arriving often descend into these, and fill 

 them with life and music, quitting them again to race in changing 

 shapes about the sky. Sometimes they will alight in the fields 

 around, 1 or, as in the case of those that roosted on Cramond Isle, 

 in the Firth of Forth, assemble on the mainland, before flying 

 across the intervening water. 2 Sometimes they will pour in a 

 continuous stream into the roosting trees or reed-beds from the 

 adjacent trees or hedges, 3 or, as I have described, will shower 

 into it from the sky. The evolutions may be omitted, a flock 

 arriving and dropping straight into the roost. 2 These, and other 

 variations, have yet to be closely studied. They are evidently due 

 in part to the local conditions of the roost, and probably in part 

 to changes in the weather. 



Nature has not forgotten to introduce into the peaceful evening 

 ceremonial of the starlings one of those touches of tragedy without 

 which few of her operations would seem complete. In this case it 

 comes in the shape of a hawk, usually a sparrow-hawk, eager for his 

 supper, and overjoyed to find so vast a banquet spread within such 

 easy reach. Towards one of the bands he speeds, almost vanishes 

 through its crowded ranks, and strikes at his chosen prey in a very 

 whirlwind of chattering fear-tossed birds, from whose centre comes, 

 heard above the din, the scream of the stricken starling, which either 

 falls still screaming to earth, or is borne away in the grasp of the 

 hawk to some conspicuous perch, where, it is torn and devoured at 

 leisure, in full view of the assembled hosts. 



When once the birds are in the roost, there rises from it their 

 evensong, remarkable enough if heard from one throat, almost 



1 H. A. Macpherson : Fauna of Lakeland (roost at Murrel Hill, near Carlisle). In the 

 Sedbury Park roost (Glos.) they have been seen to cover a seven-acre field. 



2 Annals of Scottish Natural History, 1902, p. 2 (Ch. Campbell). 



3 E. Selous, Bird Life Glimpses, p. 140. 



