THE STARLING 201 



which their minute insect prey then most swarms, 

 or where it is most visible. They scamper over it, 

 half running, but using their wings also to help 

 them, and swaying their bodies, from side to side, 

 in eager rivalry, leaving much of the ground over 

 which they pass quite unexamined, the hinder 

 portion of the flock often skimming over the heads 

 of those in front, anxious lest they should lose all 

 the tit-bits. Then a sudden whim seizes them, and 

 they are off to the next field, before half the 

 enclosure has been, even in appearance, traversed, to 

 scamp their work there, in the same headlong 

 fashion. 



Now watch a pair of these very same birds on the 

 very same lawn in March, or early in April. They 

 have become sedate, serious, thoughtful, thorough ; 

 they no longer hurry-scurry over the surface ; they 

 take up a position on it, a yard or two apart, and 

 appear to search every inch of ground and every 

 blade of grass, darting their lissom heads and necks 

 to the ground once in every two seconds, and at each 

 movement, presumably, capturing something, till 

 they have made a clean sweep of the insect inhabi- 

 tants ; and then, and not till then, do they move 

 forward for a step or two, and repeat the same 

 careful process. More than this, for an hour or so 



