122 Wild Life in a Southern County 



ground there which we could not touch for weeks ; now it 

 is open, and the place is teeming with good food. The 

 finches are there as busy as may be between the swathes — 

 chaffinch and greenfinch, hedge-sparrow, thrushes, and 

 blackbirds too. Are you afraid ? Why, no one shoots in 

 the middle of a summer's day. Still irresolute ? (with an 

 angry shrillness) . Will you or will you not ? (a sharp 

 short whistle of interrogation). Tou are simply idiots 

 (finishing with a scream of abuse). I'm off! ' 



Seeing him start, the rest follow at once, jealous lest 

 he should enjoy these pleasures alone. As he flies every 

 few minutes he closes his wings, so that for half a dozen 

 yards he shoots like an arrow through the air; then 

 rapidly uses them, and again closes and shoots forward, 

 all the time keeping a level straight course, going direct 

 to his object. 



The starlings that breed in the roof, though they leave 

 the place later on and congregate in flocks roosting in 

 trees, still come back now and then to revisit their homes, 

 especially as the new year opens, when they alight on the 

 house frequently and consult on the approaching impor- 

 tant period of nesting. If you should be sitting near 

 a window close under the roof where they are busy, read- 

 ing a book, with the summer sunshine streaming in, now 

 and then a flash like lightning will pass across the page. 

 It is a starling rapidly vibrating his wings before he 

 perches on the thatch ; the swift succession of light and 

 shadow as the wings intercept the rays of the sun causes 

 an impression on the eye like that left by a flash of light- 

 ning. They are beautiful birds : on their plumage, when 

 seen quite close, the light plays in iridescent gleams. 



Upon the roof of the old farmstead, too, the chirp of 

 the sparrow never ceases the livelong day. It is amusing 



