By the Rev. A. C. Smith. 



93 



such a hubbub of voices ensues, such chattering and such scolding, 

 each apparently anxious to secure the best berth for the night : 

 but if a gun should chance to be fired, or any thing else occcur to 

 startle them, away goes the whole flock in a dense cloud, with a 

 roar which would astonish those who have not seen and heard them. 

 Such a roosting-place exists on the Lavington downs at New 

 Copse, and here I am informed by Mr. Stratton of Gore Cross, that 

 these birds flock in thousands and tens of thousands, and he adds 

 that it is curious to observe their tactics when a hawk appears ; 

 for as the hawk prepares for the fatal pounce, they collect into 

 balls or compact flocks, and so baffle their enemy, which imme- 

 diately ascends higher for another swoop : meanwhile the Starlings 

 hurry along towards some place of shelter, but ball again, as the 

 hawk prepares to make a second dash. Another favoured haunt 

 of the Starlings is a wood in the parish of Nettleton near Chippen- 

 ham, where I am informed " one thousand were killed a few years 

 since by thirty discharges from a single barrelled gun at one time," 

 a piece of wanton cruelty only outdone by the massacre which Col. 

 Hawker records ; how he slew some thousands of Starlings at a 

 single shot from his long gun, in the reeds near Lymington in 

 Hampshire. In the fens of Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire this 

 habit of roosting in masses is productive of considerable mischief 

 to the reed beds which are of great value, the vast numbers settling 

 on the same reed bearing it down and breaking it with the un- 

 wonted weight : and even plantations and copses sometimes suffer a 

 certain amount of damage from a similar destruction of the leading 

 branches of the young trees. 1 



1 One of these enormous colonies of starlings had been for many years allowed 

 without disturbance to roost nightly in one of the late Mr. Neeld's plantations 

 alongside the public way (the Foss road) at Dunley near " The Elm and Ash," 

 about two miles from Grittleton. In April, 1850, the Keeper whose cottage 

 was only a few yards off, having had occasion one night to take a few of the 

 birds prisoners for some shooting practise the next day, the whole colony 

 resented the breach of hospitality, and suddenly left the place altogether. It 

 was then found that they had entirely spoiled the young trees and laurel shrubs 

 on about one acre of the plantation ; but that to make up for the damage, had 

 bequeathed a valuable deposit of guano, of which no less than 60 loads were 

 hauled away. (J. E. J.) 



