^S ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



was his lost pet, and the teal appeared as deHghted at 

 the meeting as he was. After staying with him a few 

 minutes expressing its pleasure and receiving caresses 

 it flew away again in search of its companions. Since 

 that encounter there had been others at long intervals, 

 the teal always recognizing 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 exceeding difficult, almost impossible, to 

 detect for reasons already given. If it were not so we 

 should probably find as many pairs of inseparables 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 present- 

 ing an extended front, the beaks and scarlet breasts all 

 turned one way, the hindmost birds continually flying 



