0 
STARLINGS. 
Down they come, the sober-coloured hen and the 
cock, with the sun glittering on his spangled fea- 
thers, with claws and beaks as busily employed, as 
if their very existence depended upon it. All, how- 
ever, in good social harmony, never quarrelling with 
the shy and less intrusive Thrush or Blackbird; or 
with the lively Wagtails, contenting themselves with 
the lighter fare of the myriads of minute flies and 
beetles, hovering over the fresh-mown turf. 
The noise and bustle go on incessantly, till the 
young ones are fledged, when for a day or two, they 
may be seen fluttering about the building, or taking 
short flights. At length, their strength being ma- 
tured, old and young collect on the tower, and then 
wheel away over the neighbouring fields, as if prac- 
tising for future and more important evolutions. 
But still the evening finds them roosting near the 
place of their birth. At last, however, a day comes 
when all is hushed. No hungry guests are feasting 
on the lawn, no clamourous throats are calling aloud 
for food, no twitterings are heard from bough or bat- 
tlement, not even a straggler is to be seen on the 
pinnacle of the weather-cock. 
The joyous assembly is broken up. The Starlings 
are gone % and till the autumn, with scarcely an ex- 
ception, we shall see them no more. Then, about 
the third week in September, again on their favourite 
* The abandonment of their breeding-place depends, of 
course, upon the season. In 1833, the month of May 
having been remarkably warm, it occurred on the sixth of 
June ; but we have known it to be delayed till the second 
week in July; the whole of June having been very unsea- 
sonable and stormy. 
