THE STALLING. 291 



I have been more than once entertained by witnessing starlings 

 spring into the air with lapwings, so much their superiors in size, 

 and guide their course ; as on the earth, the puny ass leads 

 strings of camels in the East. I have thus seen twenty starlings 

 lead about two hundred lapwings, backward and forward for a 

 long time. 



The most interesting feature in the starling is its beautiful mode 

 of flight before roosting for the night. It is very rarely that such 

 a sight can be observed in the vicinity of Belfast. But on Octo- 

 ber the 24th, 1838, I had the gratification of witnessing a flock 

 consisting of about two hundred, going through their beautiful 

 evolutions, preparatory to roosting on a bank of Arundo pliragmitis 

 at the side of the river Lagan, near Stranmillis. They several 

 times swept down from a great height in the air, almost vertically, 

 to the reeds, and, though the flock in each instance seemed to 

 lose some of its numbers there, the great body sprang up again to 

 a considerable altitude, and renewed its elegant manoeuvres. 

 Every time they descended to the reeds, the stoop was made 

 from the highest range of flight : when passing over at half that 

 elevation, and they wheeled downwards, they never drooped so 

 low as the reeds. At twenty-five minutes past four o' clock they 

 had all alighted. Concealed by a high hedge, I had the oppor- 

 tunity of watching them from a short distance, and perceived by 

 their flitting from one part of the reeds to another, that they were 

 very restless for some time. In thus changing their quarters they 

 rarely rose above the tops of the Arundo, and when at rest, were 

 perched so low down as to be invisible. After alighting, they kept 

 up a very noisy concert, in which no sound like their whistle was 

 heard, but rather a medley different from, and more guttural than, 

 their ordinary chatter. 



I have seen small flocks of starlings, on a few other occasions 

 during the time of migration, roosting here, and have remarked 

 single birds perch so high up on the reeds, as to sway them 

 horizontally. These plants were always preferred to trees for 

 roosting in, though the latter of various size, up to the most lofty, 

 were quite contiguous. Their apparent preference to reeds was thus 



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