NATURE ON THE ROOF 83 



and at farmhouses where cattle are in the yards, 

 search about among them for insects. 



The whole history of the starling is interesting, 

 hut I must here only mention it as a roof-bird. 

 They are very handsome in their full plumage, which 

 gleams bronze and green among the darker shades ; 

 quick in their motions, and full of spirit; loaded to 

 the muzzle with energy, and never still. I hope 

 none of those who are so good as to read what I have 

 written will ever keep a starling in a cage; the 

 cruelty is extreme. As for shooting pigeons at a 

 trap, it is mercy in comparison. 



Even before the starling whistles much, the sparrows 

 begin to chirp : in the dead of winter they are silent ; 

 but so soon as the warmer winds blow, if only for 

 a day, they begin to chirp. In January this year 

 I used to listen to the sparrows chirping, the starlings 

 whistling, and the chaffinches' "chink, chink" about 

 eight o'clock, or earlier, in the morning : the first 

 two on the roof; the latter, which is not a roof-bird, 

 in some garden shrubs. As the spring advances, the 

 sparrows sing it is a short song, it is true, but still 

 it is singing perched at the edge of a sunny wall. 

 There is not a place about the house where they will 

 not build under the eaves, on the roof, anywhere 

 where there is a projection or shelter, deep in the 

 thatch, under the tiles, in old eave-swallows' nests. 

 The last place I noticed as a favourite one in towns 

 is on the half-bricks left projecting in perpendicular 

 rows at the sides of unfinished houses. Half a dozen 

 nests may be counted at the side of a house on these 

 bricks ; and like the starlings, they rear several 



