Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 4 (1900).djvu/164

136 whole of my choice carnations were attacked by wireworms, and I noticed Starlings continually amongst the plants. This appears to bear out Mr. Meredith's suggestion." Dr. Sankey says:—"Starlings feed greatly on animal food; those that I dissected some time back had their crops full of caterpillars," and they pick them off oak trees when infested. The stomachs of some that were killed at Shawbury during frosty weather in December were found to contain spurts from wheat, as well as spurting wheat-grains, and a few small weed-seeds. The damage done to one wheat-field necessitated its being resown. On the other hand, Mr. Beckwith found that no bird checked the ravages of the Agrotis moth so effectually as the Starling.

To return to our subject. As soon as the young are able to fly the Starlings go out every morning to feed, keeping together in family parties, and particularly frequenting meadows where sheep and cattle are grazing, to pick up the insects disturbed by their feet. They return each night to the nest to roost. The young grow so rapidly, however, that soon there is not room for them in the nest. In this emergency some other sleeping-place has to be found, and what place would so naturally recur to the minds of the parent birds as the spot where they roosted in the previous autumn? The parents and children start off together, and on the way fall in with another little family party bent on the same errand; then another and another, till, by the time the tryst is reached, the flock numbers several hundreds. Perhaps for the first few evenings the total assemblage will not be very large, but as successive families realize the necessity of quitting their nesting-places the congress increases night by night. Very few sights in the bird-world are so impressive as one of these great gatherings of the clans. About an hour before sunset the first flocks begin to arrive at the appointed place. These do not settle down at once, but continue to fly around; soon other flocks arrive in quick succession from all points of the compass, till the heavens are literally darkened by the cloudy masses of birds. They now proceed to execute in the air a series of complicated evolutions, like regiments of soldiers on a review day—charging forwards, wheeling to right and left, crossing and recrossing over and under, converging and diverging, coalescing and separating, till at last, just after sunset, as if by one consent,