THE STARLING 97 



ate the few pears that were left hanging high up until 

 nothing but stalk was left, but they touched neither 

 apples nor pears whilst the leaves were on the trees. 



The best way of keeping Starlings away from high 

 cherry trees, that I have seen, is fixing a long narrow flag 

 to a strong top branch. Large flocks of them resort to 

 cowfolds, where the stock are all night, and before these 

 are let out the birds are there seeking for larvae and 

 worms in the dried dung, perching now and anon on the 

 backs of the cattle, chattering low all the time. They 

 rid trees of caterpillars, and the turnip fields, where they 

 have been known to clear these of ''fly"; also to visit 

 field peas that were infected with aphides and do good 

 work there; and they devour great numbers of Daddy- 

 longlegs. Waterton, that past-master in the art of 

 observing and chronicling the doings of birds, wrote : 

 " There is not a bird in all Great Britain more harmless 

 than the Starling : still, it has to suffer persecution, and 

 is often doomed to see its numbers thinned by the hand 

 of wantonness or error. The author of * Journal of a 

 Naturalist ' observed a pair of Starlings having young 

 ones for several days, and he wrote, * It appears prob- 

 able that this pair, in conjunction, do not travel less 

 than 50 miles a day, visiting and feeding their young 

 about 140 times, which, consisting of five in number, 

 and admitting only one to be fed each time, every bird 

 must receive in this period twenty portions of food." 



In 1891 twelve farmers, replying to Miss Ormerod's 

 question as to which kinds of birds were specially useful 

 in destroying caterpillars, all replied in favour of the 

 Starling. Now what, after all, matters a little fruit taken 

 from private gardens in view of all this good work done. 

 And as to the professional fruit grower, it will pay him 

 H 



