eagles to the prey. but in this case there is strong evidence in favour of mutual warning, because the ten eagles came together before descending towards the prey, and Syevertsoff had later on several opportunities of ascertaining that the whitetailed eagles always assemble for devouring a corpse, and that some of them (the younger ones first) always keep watch while the others are eating.  In fact, the white-tailed eagle—­ one of the bravest and best hunters—­is a gregarious bird altogether, and Brehm says that when kept in captivity it very soon contracts an attachment to its keepers.

Sociability is a common feature with very many other birds of prey.  The Brazilian kite, one of the most “impudent” robbers, is nevertheless a most sociable bird.  Its hunting associations have been described by Darwin and other naturalists, and it is a fact that when it has seized upon a prey which is too big, it calls together five or six friends to carry it away.  After a busy day, when these kites retire for their night-rest to a tree or to the bushes, they always gather in bands, sometimes coming together from distances of ten or more miles, and they often are joined by several other vultures, especially the percnopters, “their true friends,” D’Orbigny says.  In another continent, in the Transcaspian deserts, they have, according to Zarudnyi, the same habit of nesting together.  The sociable vulture, one of the strongest vultures, has received its very name from its love of society.  They live in numerous bands, and decidedly enjoy society; numbers of them join in their high flights for sport.  “They live in very good friendship,” Le Vaillant says, “and in the same cave I sometimes found as many as three nests close together."(12) The Urubu vultures of Brazil are as, or perhaps even more, sociable than rooks.(13) The little Egyptian vultures live in close friendship.  They play in bands in the air, they come together to spend the night, and in the morning they all go together to search for their food, and never does the slightest quarrel arise among them; such is the testimony of Brehm, who had plenty of opportunities of observing their life.  The red-throated falcon is also met with in numerous bands in the forests of Brazil, and the kestrel (Tinnunculus cenchris), when it has left Europe, and has reached in the winter the prairies and forests of Asia, gathers in numerous societies.  In the Steppes of South Russia it is (or rather was) so sociable that Nordmann saw them in numerous bands, with other falcons (Falco tinnunculus, F. oesulon, and F. subbuteo), coming together every fine afternoon about four o’clock, and enjoying their sports till late in the night.  They set off flying, all at once, in a quite straight line, towards some determined point, and. having reached it, immediately returned over the same line, to repeat the same flight.(14)

To take flights in flocks for the mere pleasure of the flight, is quite common among all sorts of birds.  “In the Humber district especially,” Ch.  Dixon writes, “vast flights of dunlins often appear upon the mud-flats towards the end of August, and remain for the winter....  The movements of these birds are most interesting, as a vast flock wheels and spreads out or closes up with as much precision as drilled troops.  Scattered among them are many odd stints and sanderlings and ringed-plovers."(15)