146 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



usually attended by a train of daws, yet it is strange that the former 

 should so frequently have a flight of starlings for their satellites. Is 

 it because rooks have a more discerning scent than their attendants, 

 and can lead them to spots more productive of food ? Anatomists 

 say that rooks, by reason of two large nerves which run down 

 between the eyes into the upper mandible, have a more delicate 

 feeling in their beaks than other round-billed birds, and can grope 

 for their meat when out of sight. Perhaps, then, their associates 

 attend them on the motive of interest, as greyhounds wait on the 

 motions of their finders ; and as lions are said to do on the yelpings 

 of jackalls. Lapwings and starlings sometimes associate.* 



* In Holland lapwings and starlings associate In vast flocks, particularly after the 

 season of incubation has passed, and the broods have joined together. In the open 

 meadows that border the canals they may be seen together in thousands, 



