summer months after the breeding season is over.

When I find a dead starling on the downs ranged over by sparrowhawks, it
is almost always a young bird--a "brown thrush" as it used to be called
by the old naturalists. You may know that the slayer was a sparrowhawk
by the appearance of the bird, its body untouched, but the flesh picked
neatly from the neck and the head gone. That was swallowed whole, after
the beak had been cut off. You will find the beak lying by the side of
the body. In summertime, when birds are most abundant, after the
breeding season, the sparrowhawk is a fastidious feeder.




CHAPTER XI

STARLINGS AND SHEEP-BELLS

Starlings' singing--Native and borrowed sounds--Imitations of
sheep-bells--The shepherd on sheep-bells--The bells for pleasure,
not use--A dog in charge of the flock--Shepherd calling his
sheep--Richard Warner of Bath--Ploughmen singing to their oxen
in Cornwall--A shepherd's loud singing


The subject of starlings associating with sheep has served to remind me
of something I have often thought when listening to their music. It
happens that I am writing this chapter in a small village on Salisbury
Plain, the time being mid-September 1909, and that just outside my door
there is a group of old elder-bushes laden just now with clusters of