They have left their wonderful sheen
somewhere behind them, and are mottled and plebeian. Still, to see a
cloud of them alighting in a field at the end of a swift circle of
flight is a pretty enough spectacle.
The evolutions of cavalry and still more of aeroplanes are elementary
compared to this. Close-packed as they are, a thousand of them will
wheel in order without an accident and alight each on his own patch of
ground with the easy grace of acrobats. It is only when they have
found their feet that the disorder begins. Whether it is worms or
insects or verdure they seek among the grazing cows, there is
evidently little enough to go round, and starling fights starling with
peck and protest all over the field. It is a scene of civil war, save
that the birds do not form themselves into sides but each wrestles
with its neighbour at random. But, after all, they are very hungry.
They cluster ravenously on the green patches, even on the sides of the
old stone walls. They have evidently not had the economic question
settled for them as the cows have.
Luckily, other birds are either less desperate or more pacific by
nature. The stone-chat as he flits from bramble to bramble in his
black cap, white collar, and red bib is a bird of charming behaviour
as well as of charming colour. There is nothing in him at discord with
these rainbow days. For stormy as they are, the days are rainbow days
to an astonishing extent. Seldom have I seen such a violence of
rainbows.
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