Alien Stares
The continental birds are often slightly different in plumage or the colour of their plumage from our residents. Last year hundreds of robins (not usually migrant at all) arrived on the coast of Norfolk, and were in great distress. The experts, to whom some of the victims were sent, could distinguish the migrants without difficulty. The larks look identical ; but the starlings are distinctive enough to tell even at a considerable distance. The visitors, I think, differ from one another more than the English birds. One was seen last week by a good observer in Hereford which was of so light a brown as to be almost yellow. In general its brownish appearance has often little resemblance to the bright metallic spots that compose the black-looking feathers. The multitude of the tribe afflict bird-lovers in Canada as much as in England, and indeed more in some districts. They have completely destroyed some new plantations which they have selected for their roosting ground, and among those who have lost trees planted for purposes of giving sanctuary is Mr. Jack Minor, the author and begetter of the most famous sanctuaries in the world.
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