126 WILD BIRDS 



tures of which we know absolutely nothing ? 

 May not some meaning attach to this starling scene 

 utterly hidden from human intelligence ? 



Sexual selection and natural selection are mighty 

 terms to conjure with. We cannot do without 

 them ; we must all believe in them, more or less. 

 But a performance such as this seems to us 

 at least whilst we watch it at the approach of 

 dusk outside the range of these grand theories 

 and terms. " Veil after veil shall lift " before the 

 searcher who searches through Evolution ; but may 

 not veil after veil yet remain to baffle him ? 



I wrote of two distinct lines of birds hurrying in 

 one from the north, the other from the west. I 

 have since heard from an observer who says that 

 from a window in Kensington Park Road he has 

 watched the western line for six or seven years past. 

 The flocks " passed town ward in the evenings, some- 

 times in dozens, sometimes in hundreds. Evidently 

 they flew in from the country. They were at about 

 a hundred feet from the ground, and always moved 

 across the back gardens. A few would break off 

 at this point and go towards Holland Park, the trees 

 of which I can see from the window. The main 

 stream kept on towards Kensington Gardens, 

 where there are large roosting parties. Occasion- 

 ally there would be a few finches among them. In 

 recent years this migration has gone on, more or less, 

 all the year, but is heaviest in autumn and winter. 

 It would seem that there are now so many of these 

 birds in London that the food supply is not enough 



