72 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



essentially the same as that between two horses, or 

 goats, or cows, or llamas, or any other species, wild 

 or domestic, that become attached to one another. 

 The union is different in origin, but once the sexual 

 motive is over and done with the life-partners are no 

 more than friends or chums. Again, birds being so 

 free and light in their motions do not keep so close 

 together as mammals do, hence a comradeship between 

 two in a crowd is not easily detected. We notice and 

 are arrested by it when a friendship exists between 

 two widely-different species, as in such cases as those 

 given in the last chapter of a pheasant and a blackbird, 

 and of a ringed dotterel and a redshank, and of another 

 I observed in South America of a lesser yellowshanks 

 and a pectoral sandpiper who were inseparable, even 

 when mixed in a flock of their own species. 



Cases of birds becoming strongly attached to a 

 human being are quite common so common indeed 

 that any industrious person could compile a volume of 

 them. One of a pheasant and a lady has been given 

 in the last chapter and I had set down several more to 

 relate in this one, but in view of the multiplicity of 

 subjects, or adventures, to be treated in the book 

 they must be left out. Or all but one given here for 

 a special reason. This is the case of a jackdaw which 

 was found last year, unable to fly, and taken home by 

 a boy in the village of Tilshead in the South Wiltshire 

 downs. In a very few days the bird recovered from his 

 weakness and was perfectly well and able to fly again, 

 but he did not go away ; and the reason of his remain- 



