DUTY IN FEATHERS. 105 
From that moment till dark, and from 
dawn to dark every day—Sundays and early- 
closing days included—the starling and his 
wife kept up without rest, or so it really 
seemed, that ceaseless routine of nest to 
meadow, hunt, to nest, and back again. 
Once a sparrow-hawk, swift and grim, 
chased Mrs Starling, screaming, all across the 
field. Once a grass-snake, all glistening coils, 
erupted in hissing terribleness at Mr Starling’s 
very feet ; and once a cow, out of whose slow, 
ponderous way he was too impudent to hop 
fast enough, actually trod on his tail, and he 
was lucky to escape with the loss of some 
feathers. 
Then at last the day came when the young 
starlings went forth. Ask me not how their 
mother enacted the miracle of getting them 
all alive on to the roof-ridge by 10 a.m.—all 
but the coward who would not venture at 
first, and did not for another hour, when he 
calmly flew from the nest, if you please. 
Once they were there, the work began. 
Mrs Starling flew up and round in a circle, 
taking one panting youngster along with her. 
You never heard such a racket of coaxing 
and refusing in all your life. Then she 
repeated the evolution with the next, and so 
on all through the family. 
8.W. h 
