Chapter XXI. 



MYXAS, STARLINGS, ETC. 



One of the earliest recollections of many a country boy 

 in the home lands must be the starlings which year by year 

 bring up their broods without the slightest attempt at con- 

 cealment in or near the paternal home, sometimes in the 

 thatch, if the house be of the very old-fashioned sort, some- 

 times under the eaves, but always in some hole or other where 

 the young have perfect cover from the weather. Very often 

 a hollow apple-tree supplies the necessary shelter, but my 

 own first recollection of the starling is of a pair which many 

 years before I could remember had made their home close 

 by the side of the chimney in my grandmother's house, and 

 continued to do so for more years than I can tell. Thej' 

 found an entrance under the slates and went some feet before 

 coming to the spot they had originally selected for the nest. 

 There, by dint of climbing inside the Ijuilding, it was possible 

 to get to them, and there, twice a year, they produced their 

 clutch of light, blue-green eggs, and brought up their hungry 

 brood. Even as a boy I was struck with the frequency with 

 which both father and mother came with food, a very few 

 minutes being the longest absence, from the early morn of 

 an English summer to the late sunset — some eighteen hours 

 all told. 



Grown up, the country boy watches starlings for other 

 reasons. The immensity of their numbers : the raids they 

 make on garden and orchard : the beauty of their plumage, 

 and above all the extraordinary precision of their manoeuvres 

 when, in their airy multitudes, they compel a wondering 

 interest. An old volunteer, who remembers the days when 

 the art of "wheeling" was practised in field exercises, cannot 

 fail to remember how proud a companj- officer would be when 

 his men were able to 'come round like a brick wall." Even 

 a brigadier would praise the difficult operation of wheeling 

 a battalion or a brigade in close order, when there were 

 perhaps four or five thousand men engaged. But officers, 

 whether company or field, had rational beings to deal with, 

 men who had been instructed in the art of keeping relative 

 positions. The starling has no school. His drill ground 

 is the sky. If he reasons, he does it remarkably well, but 



