THE STARLING AS A MIMIC 203 



of imitation, and he "practises" singing as assidu- 

 ously as a girl at school practises on the piano ; and 

 practice makes him so far perfect as to enable him 

 to deceive even a well-trained ear. Does a wood- 

 pecker, a rather solitary bird, pour forth his joyous 

 laugh from the old group of sycamores at the top of 

 the field ? the starling on the Rectory housetop will 

 sometimes reproduce his laugh so exactly that you 

 will believe, for the moment, that the woodpecker's 

 mate has taken to the thatch and is answering him 

 from there ; and it is the same with the notes of 

 the guinea-fowl, the peewit, the goldfinch, the song- 

 thrush, and even some of the mellowest tones 

 of the blackbird. He is quite a little aviary in 

 himself, and is, moreover, no mean ventriloquist. 

 Very beautiful are the light blue eggs, five in 

 number, which the female bird lays in her scanty 

 nest of straw, and most unmelodious are the loud 

 cries which come from the five throats of the rapidly 

 growing brood, when she visits them, as she does, 

 once in every two or three minutes, with her mouth 

 crammed with insects, but never sufficiently so as to 

 still their cravings, even for a moment. Happily for 

 the sake of peace and quietness, they soon find their 

 wings, and take themselves off to join the noisy flocks 

 of the other young starlings of the year, in the woods. 



