30 The Starling. 
Starling on the head or back of one of these animals, 
with their irregular movements searching for the food 
to which it is very partial. At a short distance this 
bird appears black, but on closer inspection we find 
the plumage of an old bird most beautiful, holding 
dark reflections of purple and green, and every feather 
tipped with buff. 
The Starling is rarely seen alone, except in the 
spring of the year, when the fiocks, both small and 
sreat, break up into pairs, and its mate is kept at 
home devoting herself to the nest. They build in 
rocks, old buildings, roofs of cottazes, and hollow 
trees: though other places may be chosen, these may 
be said to be their favourite breeding-haunts. In the 
autumn they go in large flocks—sometimes hundreds 
are seen together—to their roosting-places ; each flock 
packs with another as they go along, until, their num- 
bers amounting to some thousands, they settle on 
branches or reeds where they mean to pass the night, 
breaking down, damaging, and destroying those beds 
of reeds that are grown in fenny districts, fer the pur- 
pose of building. As each separate flock arrives, the 
settled numbers rise and join the fresh visitors, wheel- 
ing round their place of retirement and screaming the 
