122 CONGREGATING OF BIRDS. 



admiring at these congregations, and wishing that it was in 

 my power to account for those appearances, almost peculiar 

 to the season. The two great motives which regulate the 

 proceedings of the brute creation, are love and hunger : the 

 former incites animals to perpetuate their kind, the latter 

 induces them to preserve individuals. Whether either of 

 these should seem to be the ruling passion, in the matter of 

 congregating, is to be considered. As to love, that is out of 

 the question, at a time of the year when that soft passion is not 

 indulged ; besides, during the amorous season, such a jealousy 

 prevails between the male birds, that they can hardly bear to 

 be together in the same hedge or field. Most of the singing 

 and elation of spirits of that time, seem to me to be the effect 

 of rivalry and emulation ; and it is to this spirit of jealousy, 

 that I chiefly attribute the equal dispersion of birds in the 

 spring, over the face of the country. 



Now as to the business of food. As these animals are 

 actuated by instinct to hunt for necessary food, they should 

 not, one would suppose, crowd together in pursuit of suste- 

 nance, at a time when it is most likely to fail ; yet such 

 associations do take place in hard weather chiefly, and thicken 

 as the severity increases. As some kind of self-interest and 

 self-defence is, no doubt, the motive for the proceeding, may 

 it not arise from the helplessness of their state in such rigorous 

 seasons, as men crowd together, when under great calamities, 

 though they know not why ? Perhaps approximation may 

 dispel some degree of cold ; and a crowd may make each 

 individual appear safer from the ravages of birds of prey, and 

 other dangers. 



If I admire when I see how much congenerous birds love 

 to congregate, I am the more struck when I see incongruous 

 ones in such strict amity.* If we do not much wonder to see 

 a flock of rooks 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, f Is it because rooks have a more 



* There is nothing more strange in starlings and rooks being seen in 

 company, than for the short-eared owl to be seen amongst flights of 

 woodcocks. Pennant mentions simultaneous migrations of cuckoos and 

 turtle-doves having been noticed in Greece. 



f The author of the Journal of a Naturalist, speaking of the readiness 

 with which rooks detect the places where grubs are sure to be found, 

 says, " I have often observed them alight on a pasture of uniform verdure, 

 and exhibiting no sensible appearance of feathering or decay, and imme- 

 diately commence staking up tl j ground. Upon investigating the object 

 of their operations, I have found the heads of plantains, the little autumnal 



