Page:Natural History, Birds.djvu/160

 figures, as if animated by a common impulse, or obeying a definite word of command. They will form themselves into a triangular body, so compact as not to permit the sky to be seen between them, then shoot into a long pear-shaped figure, expand like a sheet, wheel into a ball, as Pliny long ago observed, each individual apparently striving to get into the centre, with a promptitude more like that of an army under review than the actions of birds. At length, after many feints to alight and resumptions of the aerial manoeuvres, the whole army descends upon the reeds with much clamour, which is kept up for some time after they have taken their places for the night.

Of these peculiarities in the economy of this bird, Mr. Yarrell has furnished some interesting illustrations. "I am indebted," observes this eminent zoologist, "to the kindness of the late Dr. Goodenough, Dean of Wells, for the following account of an extraordinary haunt of Starlings on the estate of W. Miles, Esq., at King's Weston:—'This locality is an evergreen plantation of arbutus, laurustinus, &c., covering some acres, to which these birds repair in an evening–I was going to say, and I believe I might with truth say—by millions, from the low grounds about the Severn, where their noise and stench are something altogether unusual. By packing in such myriads upon the evergreens, they have stripped them of their leaves, except just at the tops, and have driven the Pheasants, for whom the plantation was intended, quite away from the ground. In the daytime, when the birds are not there, the stench is still excessive. Mr. Miles was about to cut the whole plantation down to get rid of them, two