This flock as it grew dusk settled in an elm by the roadside, then removed to another, shaking down the rime from the branches, and a third time wheeled round and perched in an oak.

At that hour on ordinary days the starlings would all have been flying fast in a straight line for the copse, but these were evidently in doubt and did not know which direction to take.
Hilary disliked to see the wood-pigeons in his wheat-fields: the wood-pigeon beats the grains out of a wheat-ear with the bill, striking it while on the ground.

The sparrows, again, clear the standing wheat-ears, which at a little distance look thin and disarranged, and when handled are empty.
There were many missel-thrushes about the Chace; they are fond of a wooded district.

They pack together in summer and part in winter--just opposite in that respect to so many other birds, which separate in warm weather and congregate as it grows cold, so that the lower the temperature the larger the flock.

In winter and spring the missel-thrushes fly alone or not more than two together.