32 My Garden Summer-Seat. 



false impression, " for not distance but nearness lends 

 enchantment to a view of the starling. Even as he 

 stands for a moment in the sunshine on the chimney, 

 you can mark much of the brilliancy of his dress as 

 the beautiful metallic green of his dark plumage gleams 

 in the sun and flashes purple every now and then as 

 it catches the light from a different angle. He is too 

 far off for us to notice the harmony of his spot-mark- 

 ings ; they cannot be seen to any effect at a distance, 

 but nearer they greatly enhance his beauty. Add to 

 his other points the brown wing feathers with shiny 

 black margins, and his bill, at this season (the breeding 

 season) a bright lemon yellow, like that of a cock 

 blackbird, and you have altogether a singularly hand- 

 some bird." 



It has often been said that the more virtuous the 

 birds the less beautiful they are. Those that mate 

 year by year, and are, under some rule of "natural 

 selection," led to assume bright colours to attract the 

 females, thus gain their gay appearance as a lady-killer 

 affects fine dress ; but the starling mates for life, and 

 yet he is beautiful and most beautiful during the 

 breeding season, as though, so far as he could, he 

 would form an exception to the rule, and prove that 

 nature sometimes gives a touch of loveliness to the 

 well-behaved and true and faithful. 



The author of the article on the starling in the 

 " Encyclopaedia Britannica" says, " The worst that 

 can be said of it (the starling) is, that it occasionally 

 pilfers fruit, and as it flocks to roost in autumn and 

 winter among reed- beds, does considerable damage by 

 breaking down the stems." Yarrell, in his " British 

 Birds," speaks precisely to the same effect. 



The truth is, with a very large number of birds, one 



