THE STARLING 121 



very extensive like those of the Norfolk Broads, in which starlings roost 

 more or less all the year through, are deserted about the beginning 

 of October, or earlier, when the reeds get broken and cease to supply 

 enough perches. Deciduous trees are abandoned when the leaves 

 have fallen off, because they become too exposed to wind and weather 

 and offer no concealment from nocturnal birds of prey. A case is cited 

 by Mr. H. E. Forrest, who has made a special study of the roosts in 

 Shropshire, in which a reed-bed was deserted for osiers growing on 

 the banks of the same pool, and these again, when leafless or 

 " flattened down," for a roost further off at Moreton Corbet, where 

 the birds slept in the thick underwood, chiefly of hazel, beneath 

 tall trees. 1 In another case reeds were deserted for conifers, and, 

 in the same county, Cheshire, deciduous trees for reeds. 2 In the 

 last resort the birds appear to take to thick deciduous bushes such 

 as hawthorns, and to evergreens. The latter have been known to 

 be occupied from December to March. 3 Dr. Saxby, writing in 1874 

 of the starlings in Shetland, noted that in early autumn they roosted 

 in shrubs, and when these were leafless, in stubble, which in 

 Shetland was " always long, except in those parts where an improved 

 style of farming prevails." 4 The movements that are not due to the 

 nature of the roost may be partly explained by the southward migration 

 of a large proportion of our summer birds, many of which quit the 

 country altogether. This accounts, no doubt, for the striking reduc- 

 tion during October and November of the numbers resorting to some 

 of our large permanent roosts, only those birds being left that remain 

 with us throughout the winter. A spell of severe weather would 

 tend, of course, at any time during the winter to deplete the more 

 exposed roosts and increase those in the south and west. Against 

 the emigration above mentioned must be set the great autumn 



1 Zoologist, 1900, p. 131. When the underwood at Moreton Corbet was cut down nearly all 

 the birds deserted. 



'- T. A. Coward (in litt.). 



'> Zoologist, 1000, p. 479, and H. E. Forrest (in litt.). 



4 Birds of Shetland, p. 117. 



VOL. II. Q 



