352 
CONCORD AND DISCORD IN BIRDS. 
such, that it is natural birds should have been 
endowed with jealous temperaments, by which each 
is enabled to preserve to itself a sufficient space for 
its procurance. This feeling mostly obtains during 
summer, for in winter a disposition to combination 
of numbers is so general from that desire of society, 
on the occurrence of want and danger, that former 
envyings and quarrels are forgotten, so far as those 
particular species are concerned in whom these 
actions are remarked. Yet there are some species 
of birds known, which hunt their prey in concert 
irrespectively of season, besides which, Swallows 
and other species habitually keep together and live 
in harmony while collecting their food over the same 
meadow. On the contrary, some kinds retain their 
quarrelsome temper during winter, or rather they 
possess a larger share of it, this 1 have witnessed 
in the Robin, which in that season is particularly 
envious of intrusions on his territories, and drives 
away with blows any new comers when food is 
scattered for him. Moreover, strife is sometimes 
conspicuous among the individuals constituting 
associations apparently (except when food is the 
cause of quarrel,) the most united, as we see in the 
Sparrow during winter; one proof to my mind, that 
food is by no means a principal reason of the 
“ winter congregating” of birds. 
Aggressions are not only the cause of contentions 
among birds of one species, but also among species 
noways related. A person on whom I place reliance, 
assures me he saw a Swallow which had been 
hawking after insects over the Lara, pursue and 
punish most vehemently a Ringed Plover, which 
made but slight resistance to this treatment, and 
was eventually precipitated into the water by a 
severe blow in the head inflicted by its opponent. 
Rooks and Gulls when hunting after their common 
prey in the ploughed and other lands, are perpetually 
