SONG AND SEX 



lead to fighting ; all things go to show that they are 

 the result of pleasure in life or pride in song, and 

 that the sexual emotion is here not the incentive. 



The singing of the unflocked starlings, the few 

 stay-at-home starlings, practically throughout the 

 year mine only cease, perhaps, for a few weeks 

 during their late summer or autumn moult the 

 occasional pipe of blackbird in October, the constant 

 carols of the thrushes this month and often next, all 

 are exercises, I believe, of joy unalloyed with pur- 

 pose. The skylarks, which in some seasons fling into 

 their October songs a revelry that recalls skylarks at 

 May dawn, I put in the same category ; and no 

 doubt the woodlark and the redbreast should be put 

 there also. 



When a great flock of linnets in late summer 

 suddenly breaks into song, we cannot seek in sexual 

 motive an explanation ; this is the most strange and 

 wonderful of all the bird melodies ; it is as though 

 it began and ended without intent, melody as free 

 from purpose in the musicians as the lyrics of winds 

 and trees and waters. But here, and perhaps in the 

 evening chant of the starling host, we are on difficult 

 ground. These, in their atmosphere of mystery, 

 may always remain to us as incantations of nature. 



Society and Safety 



Does the habit of flocking common among in- 

 sects, quadrupeds, and birds tend to the safety of 

 T 273 



