152 
STAPLING. 
if a gun was tired, up again would rise the mass, with one 
unbroken rushing sound, as if the whole body were possessed 
but of one wing to bear them on their upward flight.’ 
^ v hen sweeping down to settle to rest for the night, some 
would appear to alight at each descent, while the bulk of 
the flock fly round and round, until the whole conclude their 
manoeuvres, and join the first settlers in their roosting-place. 
Where the reeds are made use of, much damage i« caused 
by the breaking them down. 
Their food consists of insects, caterpillars, grasshoppers, 
worms, snails, grain, fruits, and seeds, and in search of each 
severally of these they may be seen now sweeping off from 
their secure retreats in the grey old church-tower, or the 
4 cool grot’ of the lonely cliff that overhangs the pebbled 
beach of the glorious ocean, and hurrying to the ploughed 
field or the farm-yard, the quiet cow-fold and the pasturing 
herd; now perching on an adjoining wall, and now on the 
back of a familiar sheep, and now whistling their quaint ditty 
from the house-top or the neighbouring tree. In winter, in 
very hard weather, they frequent the sea-shore, turning over, 
with a sudden opening and twirling of the bill, the stones 
which hide the marine insects. They also swallow a little 
gravel to aid the digestion of their food. 
On sunny days, even in winter, they may be heard gurgling 
a low and not unpleasing note, which, when the result of 
the ‘concerted music’ of a flock, forms a body of sound to 
which you like to listen. Meyer compares their common 
call-note to the words starling, star, or stoar. Both male 
and female sing, but the latter the least. Starlings are easily 
kept in confinement, and may be taught to articulate various 
words; but those who can take a ‘Sentimental Journey’ with 
the talented Sterne, will lament for the poor bird in the 
cage, and will wish that they had not heard its melancholy 
*1 can’t get out! I can’t get out!’ 
Nidification commences about the beginning or middle of 
April. Starlings build in church-steeples and in holes of the 
walls of houses, towers, or ruins, as also in those of trees, as 
well as in cliffs and rocky and precipitous places; at times 
in dove-cotes and pigeon-houses, as also in caverns and under 
rocks, and even have been known to occupy the holes deserted 
by rats, and more or less fashioned for themselves. In 
Woburn Park, Bedfordshire, I am informed by Mr. George 
B. Clarke, that Starlings have built some dome-shaped nests 
