WILD WINGS: A FAREWELL 307 



some peril of being struck with tlie long hard flight 

 feathers. With niy binocular on the flock I watched 

 them until they gradually faded from sight in the sky, 

 the starlings still keeping with them. 



What could have moved these thirty birds out of a 

 flock of a hundred to act in this way? Perhaps they 

 were "just like little children" and had said to each 

 other, "Come, let's play at being geese and march 

 solemnly to the sound of screaming and cackling to 

 tlie distant farm lands where we'll stuff our crops with 

 clover and spilt wheat; and while some of us are feed- 

 ing others will keep watch, so that no crafty gunner, 

 hiding his approach behind an old grazing plough- 

 horse, shall get within shot of us." 



One becomes so imbued with the notion of unity of 

 mind in a flock of starlings — the idea that the whole 

 crowd must act with and follow the leader, if leader 

 there be — that one always wants to know why there 

 is any divergence at all, as when a flock divides and 

 goes ofif in different directions. Thus, from a flock 

 proceeding steadily in a certain direction some of the 

 birds, half the flock it may be, will suddenly drop down 

 to settle on a tree-top, leaving the others to go on ; or 

 in passing over a field where sheep are grazing a certain 

 number of the birds will come down to feed among 

 them. In the first case, the sii^^lit of the tree-top below 

 has probably suggested the need for rest to a single 

 bird ; the impulse is instantly acted on and a certain 

 number of the birds are carried away by the example 

 and folltnv, while in the others the original motive or 



