120 BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



the company of peewits. They feed with them 

 merely for their company, as I believe, and, when 

 they fly off, will often go, too. They think them 

 "good form," I fancy; but the peewits do not 

 patronise. They are indifferent, or seem to be so. 

 They may, however, have a complacent feeling in 

 being thus followed, and, as it were, fussed about, 

 which does not show itself in any action. I have 

 seen, a little after sunrise, a flock of some forty or 

 fifty peewits go up from the marshlands, and, with 

 them, a single starling, which flew from one part of 

 the flock to another, making, or appearing to make, 

 little dives at particular birds. After a minute or 

 so, it flew back to the place it had left, and where 

 other starlings were feeding. One of these flew 

 to meet it, and joining it, almost midway, made 

 delighted swoops about it, sheering off and again 

 approaching, and so, as it were, brought it back. 

 Now, here, the general body of the starlings remained 

 feeding when the peewits went up. One, only, went 

 with them, and this one must have felt something 

 which we may assume the others to have felt also, 

 though they resisted. What was this feeling of the 

 starling towards the peewits ? Was it sympathy 

 a part joyous, part fussy participation in their 

 affairs or something less definable ; or, again, was 

 the attraction physical merely, having to do, perhaps, 

 with the scent of the latter birds. Something there 

 must have been, and in such obscure causes we, 

 perhaps, see the origin of some of those cases of 

 commensalism in the animal world, where a mutual 

 benefit is, now, given and received. The subject 

 seems to me to be an interesting one, and I think it 



