120 BIRDS IN LONDON 



starling, you cannot listen to one of their choirs 

 without hearing some new sound. There is 

 more variety in the starling than in any other 

 species, and not only in his language ; if you ob- 

 serve him closely for a short time, he will treat 

 you to a sudden and surprising transformation. 

 Watch him when absorbed in his own music, 

 especially when emitting his favourite saw-filing 

 or milking- a-cow-in-a- tin-pail sounds : he trembles 

 on his perch shivers as with cold his feathers 

 puffed out, his wings hanging as if broken, his 

 beak wide open, and the long pointed feathers 

 of his swollen throat projected like a ragged 

 beard. He is then a most forlorn-looking object, 

 apparently broken up and falling to pieces ; 

 suddenly the sounds cease, and in the twinkling 

 of an eye he is once more transformed into the 

 neat, compact, glossy, alert starling ! 



Something further may be said about the pair 

 of starlings that elected to breed the summer 

 before last in sight of my top windows, in that 

 brick desert where my home is. When they 

 brought out and led their young away, I 

 wondered if they would ever return to such a 

 spot. Surely, thought I, they will have some 

 recollection of the vast labour of rearing a 



