270 NATURALIST'S. CABINET. 



Peculiar habits. 



moded by the flapping of their wings, stunned 

 by their cries, disconcerted by their order of bat- 

 tle, and judging himself too weak to penetrate 

 their lines, that are more and more concentrated 

 by fear, is frequently obliged to abandon the 

 tempting boot)', without being able to appropri- 

 ate to his use the smallest part of it. Isozeman, 

 a Dutch ornithologist, says, it is a positive fact 

 that starlings, when hard pressed by a bird of 

 prey, discharge their excrements in the face of 

 the assailant, with such force as to oblige him to 

 make a precipitate retreat. On the other hand, 

 their manner of flying affords the fowler the faci- 

 lity of catching a great number of these birds at 

 once, by means of one or two birds of the same 

 species, with a limed thread fastened to each 

 foot; these he lets loose; when mingling with 

 the flock, by their perpetual motion backward 

 and forward, they embarrass a great number in 

 the perfidious thread, and soon fall with them at 

 the feet of the fowler. They chatter much in 

 the evening and morning, when they assemble 

 and disperse, but much less during the day, and 

 at night they are totally silent. 



The starlings are at no great pains to provide 

 a place for the reception of their progeny. They 

 frequently take possession of the nest of the 

 woodpecker, as the latter sometimes seizes upon 

 theirs ; but when they construct one themselves, 

 they merely collect some grass and moss in a 

 a hole in a tree or wall ; and upon this artless 



