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STARLING.

THE starling is a very common and well-known British bird. It is also a very handsome one, being of a rich deep purple black colour, with shades of metallic green, and spotted more or less all over with white spots. The older the bird, however, the fewer the spots, so that in age it has but very few, if any. The young bird too is without spots, being entirely of a uniform dull dark brown colour, so unlike to the dress which it afterwards assumes, that it was formerly thought to be a different species, and was so described under the name of the solitary thrush.

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These birds "are found abundantly in all the lower parts of Britain, and in the most northerly of the islands; they mingle freely with most flocking birds, and do not hesitate to alight in numbers among domestic animals in the meadows and other pastures. They are partial to humid places, and do not very much frequent the elevated and arid moors; and in the cold season they migrate in vast numbers to the low and warm countries, and to the shores of the sea. They are, all seasons, very lively birds, whistling, chattering, and gliding about on the wing, which they generally do in curves, and with a smooth motion. On the ground they walk neatly, and with considerable velocity, but do not hop. The starling is the smallest of all our resident birds allied to the crow tribe, and it is one of the least rapacious, confining itself to insects and seeds, (chiefly the former,) like the chough, and never killing other birds, or probably robbing any nest. It has been accused

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of breaking the eggs of pigeons, when it takes shelter in the pigeon-house from very severe weather; but as that would be a violation of the laws of hospitality, as well as of the customs of the starling, the friends of the bird very properly repel it as a calumny.

When they are in the low districts, and in large collections, a flock of starlings, preparing to lodge themselves in the tufts for the night, put one something in mind of a dog, preparing to lie down in a place to which he is not accustomed. They wheel round and round; first in the circumference of a circle, but that circle narrows, and the whole mass revolves round a circle within itself, before it drops, and disappears for the night.

Starlings not only associate with other birds, but imitate their cries-chattering with jackdaws, whistling with plovers, and screaming with sea-fowl."

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