76 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



at long intervals, the teal always recognising its old 

 master and friend at a distance and flying straight 

 to him, but it had never returned to the house. 



One imagines that the two persons concerned in 

 these incidents, one in South Africa, the other in 

 South America, cannot now enjoy eating or even 

 shooting teal as much as they did formerly. 



Friendships between bird and bird of the same 

 species, if we exclude the companionship of such as 

 pair for life, are exceedingly difficult, almost impos- 

 sible, to detect for reasons already given. If it were 

 not so we should probably find as many pairs of in- 

 separables in any flock of bachelor chaffinches in 

 winter as in a herd of horses or cattle existing in a 

 semi-feral state. 



Another thing to be borne in mind is that it is 

 possible to mistake for friendship an action which, at 

 all events in its origin, is of a different nature. The 

 following cases will serve as illustrations. 



One relates to an exotic species, the military 

 starling of the pampas — a bird of a social disposition, 

 like most of its family, the troupials. Breeding over, 

 the birds unite in large flocks and lead a gipsy life 

 on the great plains. They are always on the move, the 

 flock presenting an extended front, the beaks and 

 scarlet breasts all turned one way, the hindmost birds 

 continually flying forward and dropping down in or a 

 little in advance of the front line. It is a pretty 

 spectacle, one I was never tired of seeing. One day 

 I was sitting on my horse watching a flock feeding 

 and travelling in their leisurely manner, when I 



