Too many starlings in a given place are likely to be a serious
trouble--in fact they make a place almost impossible for other
inhabitants. Starlings haunt many kinds of roosting-places--the high
reeds, the woods, and the shrubs about a house. The keeper finds small
pleasure in the thunderous noise of their wings in his coverts. Towards
the end of October the sales of underwood take place; thereafter
the underwood is cut, and this often drives the starlings from an
old roosting-haunt to fresh woods, where their presence is far from
desirable, in view of the approaching covert-shooting. Naturally,
people hesitate to take preventive measures, such as shooting or
lighting fires of green wood, for the shots or the smoke would drive
away pheasants as well as starlings. Yet it is wiser thus to drive away
one season's pheasants than to have the wood made impossible for many
years--to all save starlings.
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[Illustration: STARLINGS ROOSTING ON REEDS.