JANUARY 15 



common prizes. It is far otherwise now. There are 

 few cultivated districts in the United Kingdom where 

 starlings do not nest in numbers, collecting in immense 

 flocks in autumn to feed in company with plovers and 

 other insectivorous birds. 



It must be owned that the popularity of the starling 

 has not kept pace with the numerical increase of the 

 species. Individually, there is no more engaging bird. 

 To the nimble wit and cautious intelligence of the rest 

 of the Corvidce, or crow family, is united in this prettily- 

 spangled creature a knack of mimicry; so that in 

 listening to the conversation of a pair of starlings 

 seated on a chimney -top in midwinter one may 

 recognise a medley of sounds uttered by other birds 

 during the bygone summer the wail of a curlew, the 

 flurried pipe of the redshank, the clucking of the coot, 

 snatches of melody learnt from song-birds, and so on. 

 But, collectively, starlings are not favourites with many 

 people. Their roosting - places become abominably 

 dirty and malodorous, so that it often is necessary in 

 self-defence to oust them from shrubberies in which 

 they have established a dormitory. From many a 

 dovecot have the legitimate occupants been expelled 

 by the intrusion of these irrepressible creatures : 

 market gardeners complain of depredations on ripe 

 fruit, and even farmers eye with suspicion the opera- 

 tion of large flocks of these birds upon their fields. 



Nevertheless one should balance good against evil 

 before passing judgment upon any creature. In the 

 case of the starlings, all naturalists are agreed that the 

 good outweighs the evil, owing to the enormous 



