DUTY IN FEATHERS. 
| ener are strange creatures. They do 
everything their own way, which is not 
the way of any other creature, and even the 
most familiar of them really remain mysterious 
to us. 
The starlings had their nest in the hole 
under the eaves where the roof rose to a 
point. Goodness knows how they found the 
place, for you couldn’t see it a yard away ! 
Equally strange was it how they managed 
to get into it when found, for it appeared 
far too small, and even wriggling in with shut 
wings seemed to bring them within measurable 
danger of being skinned. 
During the long, dreary days of incubation 
neither the starling nor his wife was much in 
evidence. But it was his custom to take the 
air of evenings. on the chimney-top, preening 
himself, and going through his odd, ‘fizzling’ 
song—most birds seem to combine song with 
cleaning, by the way—which was as much a 
dance as a song, or, at least, an exhibition of 
gesticulation. 
He shivered in his voice, he shivered in his 
body, he shivered in his half-open wings, and, 
to judge by the quite indescribable sounds he 
