152 STARLING. 



if a gun was fired, up again would rise the mass, with one 

 unbroken rushing sound, as if the whole body were possessed 

 but of one wing to bear them on their upward flight.' 



When sweeping down to settle to rest for the night, some 

 would appear to alight at each descent, while the bulk of 

 the flock fly round and round, until the whole conclude their 

 rnanceuvres, and join the first settlers in their roosting-plaee. 

 Where the reeds are made use of, much damage is caused 

 by the breaking them down. 



Their food consists of insects, caterpillars, grasshoppers, 

 worms, snails, grain, fruits, and seeds, and in search of each 

 severally of these they may be seen now sweeping off from 

 their secure retreats in the grey old church-tower, or the 

 'cool grot' of the lonely cliff" that overhangs the pebbled 

 beach of the glorious ocean, and hurrying to the ploughed 

 field or the farm-yard, the quiet cow-fold and the pasturing 

 herd; now perching on an adjoining wall, and now on the 

 back of a familiar sheep, and now whistling their quaint ditty 

 from the house-top or the neighbouring tree. In winter, in 

 very hard weather, they frequent the sea-shore, turning over, 

 with a sudden opening and twirling of the bill, the stones 

 which hide the marine insects. They also swallow a little 

 gravel to aid the digestion of their food. 



On sunny days, even in winter, they may be heard gurgling 

 a low and not unpleasing note, which, when the result of 

 the 'concerted music' of a flock, forms a body of sound to 

 which you like to listen. Meyer compares their common 

 call-note to the words starling, star, or stoar. Both male 

 and female sing, but the latter the least. Starlings are easily 

 kept in confinement, and may be taught to articulate various 

 words; but those who can take a 'Sentimental Journey' with 

 the talented Sterne, will lament for the poor bird in the 

 cage, and will wish that they had not heard its melancholy 

 'I can't get out! I can't get out!' 



Nidification commences about the beginning or middle of 

 April. Starlings build in church-steeples and in holes of the 

 walls of houses, towers, or ruins, as also in those of trees, as 

 well as in cliffs and rocky and precipitous places; at times 

 in dove-cotes and pigeon-houses, as also in caverns and under 

 rocks, and even have been known to occupy the holes deserted 

 by rats, and more or less fashioned for themselves. In 

 Woburn Park, Bedfordshire, I am informed by Mr. George 

 B. Clarke, that Starlings have built some dome-shaped nests 



