SOLITARY AND GREGARIOUS. 6.5 



for example, that the winter nest of the gold-tail 

 moth (Porthesia chrysorrhoea) is constructed as a 

 common domicile for a whole brood*, which in their 

 young state can find enough of food though they keep 

 together; but when they increase in size the follow- 

 ing spring, and require a larger supply, they natu- 

 rally separate, each to forage for itself. The fry of 

 salmon and most other fish keep together in crowds 

 in the early stage of their existence, not probably 

 from any propensity to sociality, but because they 

 are hatched about the same time at the head of the 

 same pool, and as yet have no cause to be alarmed 

 on account of the ravenous propensities of their 

 companions. But this is very different from the con- 

 gregating of birds after they have lived solitary for 

 several months, as is the case with larks, linnets, the 

 window and chimney swallows, and many others. 



The lark during the summer months is decidedly 

 unsocial ; for though we may meet with two or three 

 pairs in the same field, we seldom find their nests 

 near each other. They are not quarrelsome and 

 pugnacious, like the red-breasts, but they seem to 

 prefer a secluded spot to a crowded neighbourhood. 

 The young larks, after leaving the nest, seem equally 

 unsocial, and do not, like most nestlings, keep toge- 

 ther in a band ; but prefer to wander about the field 

 by themselves, though this must increase the trouble 

 of their parents in bringing them food. Yet these 

 seemingly unsocial birds, as soon as the breeding 

 season is fully over, flock together in numbers almost 

 incredible, and have then been caught for the table in 

 most countries of Europe from the earliest times, as 

 in Greece, Italy f, and England}. The numbers 

 taken in France may be guessed at from the account 



* See Insect Architecture, p. 331. 



t Oppian in Ixeuticae. 

 t Polyd. Virgil. Hist. fol. 1534. 



G3 



