Turning now to the flock one is impressed with the friendship that seems
to exist between the various members. There are, it is true, occasional
displays of pugnacity which never seem to develop into anything very
serious; for instance, one bird will fly at another, and a momentary
scuffle is followed by a short pursuit but nothing more--nothing, that
is to say, in the least comparable with the battle previously described.
Of what is the flock composed? Of members of both sexes. There is no
difficulty in assuring oneself that this is so. But is it entirely
composed of individuals in whom development has not reached a stage
adequate for the functioning of the primary dispositions? No, not
entirely; for it will be observed that its number is a fluctuating one,
that birds come and go, and, if a close watch is kept upon the different
individuals as they leave, it will be noticed that some at least are
inmates of the territories at the opposite end of the meadow--the
solitary members whose behaviour we were recently watching. This fact is
an important one. We were impressed, it may be remembered, with the
contrast between the general behaviour of the birds at the opposite
ends of the meadow. But now it appears as if the contrast were not
between this individual and that, but between the behaviour of the same
one under different circumstances. The male, that is to say, which,
while in its territory, tolerates the approach of no other male, flies
to the flock and is there welcomed by the very individuals with whom a
short time previously it had been engaged in serious conflict.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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