COUNTRY LIFE
ONE of the large " murmurations of stares," probably more numerous this year than usual, was flying near the sea by Clacton when they became aware of a kestrel hovering overhead. At once, by one of those sudden concerted movements that mark their winter manoeuvres, they bunched together, some 300 or so, into a serried ball with a clearly definite edge, and in this figure flew on for several minutes, till the kestrel drifted away, when the black ball at once broke up into the usual loose formation. The observer of the incident suggests that such co-operative response must be achieved by some other faculty than what we call instinct. The " instantaneousness of movement " in flocks of linnets, finches, as well as starlings, was much studied by Edmund Selous, and he came very near to explaining it by the dangerous solution of a sixth sense. It does not take us much farther, and shows a flagrant contempt for what the schoolmen called " Occam's razor."
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