  We address the question of whether violent star formation in HII galaxies is
induced by low mass companions by describing statistically their local
environment as estimated by the correlation function. We argue that even if low
mass companions were mainly intergalactic HI clouds, their optical counterparts
should be detectable at faint limits of the Automatic Plate Measuring Machine
scans. We then cross-correlate a large sample of HII galaxies with the APM
faint field galaxy catalogue. The preliminary results are all consistent with
HII galaxies being a randomly selected sample of normal faint field galaxy with
no extra clustering. This suggests that at least in these dwarf starburst
galaxies star formation is not triggered by tidal interactions and may have a
different origin.
