FRIENDSFIIP IN ANIMALS 79 



itself was feeding them, not by putting the seed into 

 their beaks but by conveying it from the box to the 

 other side of the cage-floor where the sparrows could 

 get at it. 



I take it that in these instances the act does not pro- 

 ceed from friendsliip but from the helping instinct 

 common in animals of social habits. We know it best 

 in tlie large mammals — cattle, swine, peccaries, deer, 

 elephants, and many more. Even the unsocial cat will 

 sometimes feed a fellow-cat. In birds it appears to 

 have its origin in the parental instinct of feeding and 

 protecting the young from danger. A young bird that 

 has lost its parents will sometimes find a response to 

 its hunger-call from a bird stranger, and in some in- 

 stances the stranger is of a different species. It may 

 be noted here that, in some species, the incubating female 

 when fed by the male reverts to the hunger-cry and 

 gestures of the young. The cry of distress too in an 

 old bird, when captured or injured, which excites its 

 fellows and brings them to its rescue, is like the cry 

 of distress and terror in the young. 



Many other cases one meets with of a close com- 

 panionship between individuals result from the impa- 

 tience of solitude in a social species. So intolerable is 

 loneliness to some animals that they will attach them- 

 selves to any creature they can scrape acquaintance with, 

 without regard to its kind or habits or of disparity in 

 size. I remember a case of this kind which was re- 

 corded many years ago, of a pony confined by itself in 

 a field and a partridge — a solitary bird who was perhaps 



