204 THE RECTORY AND ITS BlftDS 



The starling is one of the most sociable and 

 gregarious of all birds ; not content with his own 

 flock of from one to five hundred in number, with 

 which he consorts for five out of the twelve months 

 in the year, he will often join the flocks of other 

 gregarious birds, such as rooks, jackdaws, or even 

 wood-pigeons. He is on the best of terms, too, 

 with four-footed animals, a flock of sheep or a herd 

 of cows, often pitching on their backs and indefati- 

 gably ridding them of the vermin which infest them, 

 an equal service to the rider and the ridden. He 

 cannot even roost alone, but is not content in the 

 late autumn or winter months without thousands or 

 tens of thousands of companions. 



Scattered all over the country, but at consider- 

 able distances from each other, are the habitual or 

 hereditary roosting-places of the starling. Such 

 spots attracted the notice of Pliny, and they have 

 furnished a striking simile to the Inferno of Dante. 

 Sometimes, the spot chosen is a bed of reeds, which 

 often break, or a bed of withies, which often bend 

 to the ground, beneath their weight. More often, as 

 is the case with Bagber Copse, three miles from 

 Bingham's Melcombe, it is a hazel plantation in 

 the middle of open upland fields. Go there an hour 

 before sunset, and the place is as sombre and 



