GOLDFINCHES 



BIRDS IN FLOCKS 



ONE of the most characteristic signs of gathering autumn is 

 the congregation of many kinds of birds in roving flocks. A 

 gregarious existence seems natural to the majority of birds, 

 except in the crisis of the nesting-season, when they are 

 driven asunder partly in order to have sufficient territory for 

 the collection of food for the hungry young, but mainly to 

 satisfy the overmastering instinct of jealous independence 

 which most creatures feel with regard to their mates and 

 young. At any rate, with most of our familiar English birds 

 the season of separate households and a settled domicile lasts 

 for little more than a third of the year, and for nearly two- 

 thirds of it they roam far and wide in company with others 

 of their own and kindred species. As surely as we see in 

 September the first leaves dropping from the lime-trees, and 

 the first golden boughs shining in the crowns of the elms, we 

 hear the flocks of linnets piping in the cornfield hedgerows, 

 and the mixed cries of the jackdaws and rooks and starlings 

 as they rise in a loose cloud from the tanned and tufted 

 pastures. The birds' family life is merging day by day into 

 the communal existence of the great winter packs. Species 

 forgathers with species, and a different conception of 



TO 



