128 THE STARLINGS 



that she fled." l The starlings did not flee, but promptly got to work 

 again in the nest. And so the fight went on until, at the end of the 

 week, Miss Turner, fearing the woodpeckers might finally give up 

 their hole, tried the device of nailing a nesting-box to the trunk. 

 This was at once occupied by the starlings, and so the incident was 

 closed. It is interesting to note that the starlings improved their 

 leisure moments during the combat by learning to imitate the laugh 

 or " yaffle " of their opponent, and they uttered it with accuracy enough 

 to deceive the hen woodpecker and lure her from her hole, till she 

 learnt to realise the fraud. 



The persistence of starlings is well illustrated by the following 

 account of an attempt to prevent them from building in the bowl- 

 shaped receiver at the top end of a rain-water pipe. On the first 

 occasion the owner simply removed the nest. The birds at once 

 started to build again. He then fixed wire over the top of the 

 receiver. The birds raised it and began once more. He refixed 

 the wire securely. Some days afterwards he found a nest again 

 in the receiver, with eggs in it. As the wire had not been un- 

 fastened, he was much puzzled to know how the birds had made their 

 entry. They soon solved the mystery for him. Above the receiver. 

 and leading down to it from the gutter at the eaves of the roof, was a 

 round, almost perpendicular pipe, about eighteen inches long and four 

 inches in diameter. It was by this pipe that the birds entered their 

 nest. The descent was comparatively easy, but the return journey wu 

 quite another matter. The birds doubtless performed it by pressing 

 the back and feet against opposite ends of the pipe, and so scrambled 

 up. That they found this method of progression exceedingly irksome 

 was to be inferred from the stifled screeches which possessed the 

 inside of the pipe during each ascent, and by the very dejected and 

 disreputable appearance of the starlings when they emerged from 

 its upper end, where they had to pause awhile to cool themselves 

 and to readjust their feathers. The difficulties were finally solved 



1 British Birds, ii. p. 142. 



