SOME BIRD NOTES 223 



THE STARLING 



The starling is a great favourite of mine. It always 

 appears to be merry, no matter how unpleasant the weather, 

 and it has few idle moments. It is the first bird the 

 Breydon-side rambler puts up off the "rafts" which lie 

 moored at the town end of the estuary, whether it is hunt- 

 ing in summer with the meadow-pipits for insects sunning 

 themselves above, or small crustaceans pottering about on 

 the heaps of wrack that the tide has floated to the ends 

 of the huge balks, or in winter in waiting on the hooded 

 crows for fragments of carrion overlooked by them. Fond 

 of the company of its fellows, it is ever ready to dispute 

 with its friends on either side of it for possession of a dainty 

 morsel. I have seen a dozen of them that one might have 

 covered with a handkerchief, all industriously picking up 

 maggots from some dead animal on a refuse-heap when, 

 even in the midst of plenty, they must needs stop at inter- 

 vals to quarrel, individuals jumping quite off the ground, 

 like fighting cocks, in passing anger, sparring in the air at 

 each other, and then as quickly desisting, begin picking up 

 their prey with an eagerness that suggested a suspicion 

 of arrears of gleaning to be done and lost time to be made 

 up. On the mudflats in autumn, when Corophium longicorne 

 and Gammarida and other small crustaceans are eagerly 

 sought, those petty disputations are not noticeable, and the 

 flocks scatter more in hunting. 



The fat, oily larvae of the cockchafer (Melolontha vulgaris) 

 are favourite tit-bits with the starlings. I have seen patches 

 of grass in the St. George's Park riddled with holes made 

 by the conical bill of the starling when searching for them. 

 A spot was shown me by the park-keeper on November 7th, 

 1906, on which the grass grew thin and weakly it was a 

 favourite haunt of the cockchafer during the two or three 

 weeks in July when they were most in evidence. Here the 

 starlings would come at certain times " as if they knew 

 where to find them by instinct," as my friend remarked, and 

 without ado they would drive their bills deep into the soil, 

 and with a circular movement worm out the fat grub and 

 instantly devour it. 



