April 



work. On that day at sundown, I was just outside 

 a thick fir plantation, and observed that there were 

 about three hundred starlings in an adjoining grass 

 field, and that small bands and straggling streams 

 were continually arriving, so that in the end the 

 number reached between fifteen hundred and two 

 thousand birds. They were engaged to some ex- 

 tent in feeding, but never so as to fail to add 

 interjectional notes to the ceaseless wiry wheeze that 

 rose as from an evening host of locusts. Even this 

 was not the most serious business on _hand ; for it 

 was evident that the one inspiring impulse for each 

 was to obtain from that jostling multitude a partner 

 for the season. The only philosophy a starling 

 knows, whether in love or feeding, is " First 

 come, first served ; " and each male plied his suit 

 with the females, and disputed with his fellow males, 

 as if he feared that of all that concourse no eligible 

 lady might be left to share his lot. The starling is 

 a business-like bird, and, as if conscious that he lacks 

 the softer graces of the feathered lover, follows a 

 sterner tack, and turns his courtship into a veritable 

 hunt. Pick out your bird, and watch him as he 

 shoves his way among the thronging birds. He 

 charges a hen by way of salutation : then charges a 

 neighbouring cock for being a cock at all. He 

 seems to have no particular ideal of a mistress, and 

 I call to mind one which all at once found himself 

 between two responsive hens. It was plainly a 

 dilemma. He looked from one to the other ; ran 



13* 



