FRIENDSHIP IN ANIMALS 77 



others at long intervals, the teal always recognizing its 

 old master and friend at a distance and flying straight 

 to him, but it had never returned to the house. 



One imagines that the two persons concerned in 

 these incidents, one in South Africa, the other in 

 South America, cannot now enjoy eating or even 

 shooting teal as much as they did formerly. 



Friendships between bird and bird of the same 

 species, if we exclude the companionship of such as pair 

 for life, are exceeding difficult, almost impossible, to 

 detect for reasons already given. If it were not so we 

 should probably find as many pairs of inseparables in 

 any flock of bachelor chaffinches in winter as in a herd 

 of horses or cattle existing in a semi-feral state. 



Another thing to be borne in mind is that it is 

 possible to mistake for friendship an action which, at 

 all events in its origin, is of a different nature. The 

 following cases will serve as illustrations. 



One relates to an exotic species, the military starling 

 of the pampas — a bird of a social disposition, like 

 most of its family, the Troupials. Breeding over, the 

 birds unite in large flocks and lead a gipsy life on the 

 great plains. They are always on the move, the flock 

 presenting an extended front, the beaks and scarlet 

 breasts all turned one way, the hindmost birds con- 

 tinually flying forward and dropping down in or a little 

 in advance of the front line. It is a pretty spectacle, 

 one I was never tired of seeing. One day I was sitting 

 on my horse watching a flock feeding and travelling 

 in their leisurely manner when I noticed a little dis- 



