STARLINGS 445 



at sunrise in the summer know that one of the earliest 

 birds astir is the starling, that bands of them inhabit 

 the tree-tops as soon as they are gilded and before 

 the sun is visible from the ground. They are paying 

 rushing visits to one another, and whistling and clat- 

 tering their hardest. 



All through the woods there could scarcely be a 

 hollow branch that had not a nest of starlings. They 

 crowded round the house so much that one pair had to 

 put up with an unaccustomed site in the brush of an 

 Irish yew. One of the chief memories of May is the 

 continual launching of single starlings, as though shot 

 from so many catapults, out from its porthole under 

 eaves or in hollow walnut, away to the buttercupped 

 fields. Eighteen times in fifteen minutes the pur- 

 veyors came home to one nest from a field a hundred 

 yards away. Every time they brought something 

 that the farmer was very glad to be rid of probably 

 a big white chafer-grub, a bunch of wire-worms, or a 

 leather-jacket, which are, perhaps, the three worst of 

 all our insect pests. The average nest has produced 

 its usual two broods of six or seven young apiece, and 

 the farm eaves alone are responsible for nearly two 

 hundred of this great cloud in the oak spinney. 



That is who the starling is, for we will say nothing 

 here about his occasional toll of fruit the fruit of his 

 own agricultural endeavour. It is, after all, a small 

 thing compared with the practical extermination of 

 the May-beetle that has followed the extension of the 

 starling flocks during the last thirty years. But why 

 " starling " ? If you ask the nearest farm labourer, you 

 will get a clue that will save the trouble of referring to 

 the dictionary. The starling is here commonly called 



