In numberless species which undoubtedly pair for
life the sexes keep apart during several hours each
day, and there is some evidence that those that
separate for a part of the year remain faithful.
An incident, related by Miss Ethel Williams,
of Winchester, in her natural history notes con-
tributed to a journal in that city, bears on this point.
She had, among the bird pensioners in the garden
of her house adjoining the Cathedral green, a female
thrush that grew tame enough to fly into the house
and feed on the dining-room table. Her thrush
paired and bred for several seasons in the garden,
and the young, too, were tame and would follow


DO STARLINGS PAIR FOR LIFE? 237


their mother into the house to be fed. The male
was wild and too shy ever to venture in. She noticed
the first year that it had a wing-feather which stuck
out, owing probably to a malformation of the socket.
Each year after the breeding season the male vanished,
the female remaining alone through the winter
months, but in spring the male came back—the
same bird with the unmistakable projecting wing-
feather. Yet it was certain that this bird had gone
quite away, otherwise he would have returned to
the garden, where there was food in abundance
during the spells of frosty weather. As he did not
appear it is probable that he migrated each autumn
to some warmer climate beyond the sea.
