224 THE BIRDS OF IONA AND MULL. 



THE STARLING. 

 Gaelic, Druid (pronounced trootch). The word druid also means to close, 



to shut up. 



In summer many starlings nestle and rear their young among 

 the crevices of the ruins of lona, where their chatterings and queer 

 noises are heard incessantly from dawn to dusk. Through the winter 

 they also assemble here to roost, and entertain themselyes preparatory 

 to retiring for the night by a display of mimicry, and rival one another 

 in producing queer noises. The imitation of the curlew's quavering 

 whistle is perhaps the happiest execution. In the winter, too, they 

 assemble in very considerable flocks while feeding in the fields, and 

 are so noisy that they may be heard a long way off, and be easily 

 stalked and watched from behind a stone dyke. They present at such 

 a time a general scene of clamour and confusion, half-a-dozen pitched 

 battles are going on at the same time in the midst of a universal Irish 

 row, and more fun than fighting. A great many may be shot at such 

 a time, and they are eatable in a pie. (I make it a rule in general to 

 eat what I shoot, unless killing for the paramount duty of obtaining a 

 skin or a specimen.) When not feeding, starlings often amuse them- 

 selves by flying about with great velocity, the whole flock formed into 

 a solid mass, which darts about in the air, changing its formation like 

 military evolutions. They do this when threatened by a hawk, which 

 seems a mistaken instinct, for though they dodge about with great 

 celerity and swiftness, the hawk charges through the whole block, and 

 emerges on the other side with a struggling victim in his claws. It is 

 like a human panic, where terror-stricken people crowd together with 

 a fancied idea of security. 



THE GREEN GROSBEAK. 

 Is common all the year. 



THE TWITE. 



Flies in dense flocks during the winter months, frequenting the 

 stubbles and stackyards for feeding in principally, but are often found 

 on the low strips of land skirting the shore, and on wild parts of the 

 hills where there is pasture. When the sun begins to get strength in 

 the beginning of spring, a vast number will congregate on some sloping 



