November 8th

1874

Nov. 8, — Walking with Wm. Splaine we saw a vast multitude of starlings making an unspeakable jangle. They would settle in a row of trees; then, one tree after another, rising at a signal they looked like a cloud of specks of black snuff or powder struck up from a brush or broom or shaken from a wig; then they would sweep round in whirlwinds—you could see the nearer and farther bow of the rings by the size and blackness; many would be in one phase at once, all narrow black flakes hurling round, then in another; then they would fall upon a field and so on. Splaine wanted a gun: then 'there it would rain meat' he said. I thought they must be full of enthusiasm and delight hearing their cries and stirring and cheering one another...

Gerard Manley Hopkins
(Gerard Manley Hopkins, (28 July 1844 – 8 June 1889) was an English poet and Jesuit priest whose 20th-century fame established him posthumously among the leading Victorian poets.)