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I need not dwell upon the associations of male and female for
rearing their offspring, for providing it with food during their
first steps in life, or for hunting in common; though it may be
mentioned by the way that such associations are the rule even
with the least sociable carnivores and rapacious birds; and that
they derive a special interest from being the field upon which
tenderer feelings develop even amidst otherwise most cruel
animals. It may also be added that the rarity of associations
larger than that of the family among the carnivores and the birds
of prey, though mostly being the result of their very modes of
feeding, can also be explained to some extent as a consequence of
the change produced in the animal world by the rapid increase of
mankind. At any rate it is worthy of note that there are species
living a quite isolated life in densely-inhabited regions, while
the same species, or their nearest congeners, are gregarious in
uninhabited countries. Wolves, foxes, and several birds of prey
may be quoted as instances in point.
However, associations which do not extend beyond the family
bonds are of relatively small importance in our case, the more so
as we know numbers of associations for more general purposes,
such as hunting, mutual protection, and even simple enjoyment of
life. Audubon already mentioned that eagles occasionally
associate for hunting, and his description of the two bald
eagles, male and female, hunting on the Mississippi, is well
known for its graphic powers. But one of the most conclusive
observations of the kind belongs to Syevertsoff. Whilst studying
the fauna of the Russian Steppes, he once saw an eagle belonging
to an altogether gregarious species (the white-tailed eagle,
Haliactos albicilla) rising high in the air for half an hour it
was describing its wide circles in silence when at once its
piercing voice was heard. Its cry was soon answered by another
eagle which approached it, and was followed by a third, a fourth,
and so on, till nine or ten eagles came together and soon
disappeared. In the afternoon, Syevertsoff went to the place
whereto he saw the eagles flying; concealed by one of the
undulations of the Steppe, he approached them, and discovered
that they had gathered around the corpse of a horse. The old
ones, which, as a rule, begin the meal first--such are their
rules of propriety-already were sitting upon the haystacks of the
neighbourhood and kept watch, while the younger ones were
continuing the meal, surrounded by bands of crows. From this and
like observations, Syevertsoff concluded that the white-tailed
eagles combine for hunting; when they all have risen to a great
height they are enabled, if they are ten, to survey an area of at
least twenty-five miles square; and as soon as any one has
discovered something, he warns the others.(11) Of course, it
might be argued that a simple instinctive cry of the first eagle,
or even its movements, would have had the same effect of bringing
several 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)
It would be quite impossible to enumerate here the various
hunting associations of birds; but the fishing associations of
the pelicans are certainly worthy of notice for the remarkable
order and intelligence displayed by these clumsy birds. They
always go fishing in numerous bands, and after having chosen an
appropriate bay, they form a wide half-circle in face of the
shore, and narrow it by paddling towards the shore, catching all
fish that happen to be enclosed in the circle. On narrow rivers
and canals they even divide into two parties, each of which draws
up on a half-circle, and both paddle to meet each other, just as
if two parties of men dragging two long nets should advance to
capture all fish taken between the nets when both parties come to
meet. As the night comes they fly to their resting-places--
always the same for each flock--and no one has ever seen them
fighting for the possession of either the bay or the resting
place. In South America they gather in flocks of from forty to
fifty thousand individuals, part of which enjoy sleep while the
others keep watch, and others again go fishing.(16) And finally,
I should be doing an injustice to the much-calumniated
house-sparrows if I did not mention how faithfully each of them
shares any food it discovers with all members of the society to
which it belongs. The fact was known to the Greeks, and it has
been transmitted to posterity how a Greek orator once exclaimed
(I quote from memory):--"While I am speaking to you a sparrow
has come to tell to other sparrows that a slave has dropped on
the floor a sack of corn, and they all go there to feed upon the
grain." The more, one is pleased to find this observation of old
confirmed in a recent little book by Mr. Gurney, who does not
doubt that the house sparrows always inform each other as to
where there is some food to steal; he says, "When a stack has
been thrashed ever so far from the yard, the sparrows in the yard
have always had their crops full of the grain."(17) True, the
sparrows are extremely particular in keeping their domains free
from the invasions of strangers; thus the sparrows of the Jardin
du Luxembourg bitterly fight all other sparrows which may attempt
to enjoy their turn of the garden and its visitors; but within
their own communities they fully practise mutual support, though
occasionally there will be of course some quarrelling even
amongst the best friends.
Hunting and feeding in common is so much the habit in the
feathered world that more quotations hardly would be needful: it
must be considered as an established fact. As to the force
derived from such associations, it is self-evident. The strongest
birds of prey are powerless in face of the associations of our
smallest bird pets. Even eagles--even the powerful and terrible
booted eagle, and the martial eagle, which is strong enough to
carry away a hare or a young antelope in its claws--are
compelled to abandon their prey to bands of those beggars the
kites, which give the eagle a regular chase as soon as they see
it in possession of a good prey. The kites will also give chase
to the swift fishing-hawk, and rob it of the fish it has
captured; but no one ever saw the kites fighting together for the
possession of the prey so stolen. On the Kerguelen Island, Dr.
Coues saw the gulls to Buphogus--the sea-hen of the sealers--
pursue make them disgorge their food, while, on the other side,
the gulls and the terns combined to drive away the sea-hen as
soon as it came near to their abodes, especially at
nesting-time.(18) The little, but extremely swift lapwings
(Vanellus cristatus) boldly attack the birds of prey. "To see
them attacking a buzzard, a kite, a crow, or an eagle, is one of
the most amusing spectacles. One feels that they are sure of
victory, and one sees the anger of the bird of prey. In such
circumstances they perfectly support one another, and their
courage grows with their numbers."(19) The lapwing has well
merited the name of a "good mother" which the Greeks gave to it,
for it never fails to protect other aquatic birds from the
attacks of their enemies. But even the little white wagtails
(Motacilla alba), whom we well know in our gardens and whose
whole length hardly attains eight inches, compel the sparrow-hawk
to abandon its hunt. "I often admired their courage and agility,"
the old Brehm wrote, "and I am persuaded that the falcon alone is
capable of capturing any of them.... When a band of wagtails has
compelled a bird of prey to retreat, they make the air resound
with their triumphant cries, and after that they separate." They
thus come together for the special purpose of giving chase to
their enemy, just as we see it when the whole bird-population of
a forest has been raised by the news that a nocturnal bird has
made its appearance during the day, and all together--birds of
prey and small inoffensive singers--set to chase the stranger
and make it return to its concealment.
What an immense difference between the force of a kite, a
buzzard or a hawk, and such small birds as the meadow-wagtail;
and yet these little birds, by their common action and courage,
prove superior to the powerfully-winged and armed robbers! In
Europe, the wagtails not only chase the birds of prey which might
be dangerous to them, but they chase also the fishing-hawk
"rather for fun than for doing it any harm;" while in India,
according to Dr. Jerdon's testimony, the jackdaws chase the
gowinda-kite "for simple matter of amusement." Prince Wied saw
the Brazilian eagle urubitinga surrounded by numberless flocks of
toucans and cassiques (a bird nearly akin to our rook), which
mocked it. "The eagle," he adds, "usually supports these insults
very quietly, but from time to time it will catch one of these
mockers." In all such cases the little birds, though very much
inferior in force to the bird of prey, prove superior to it by
their common action.(20)
However, the most striking effects of common life for the
security of the individual, for its enjoyment of life, and for
the development of its intellectual capacities, are seen in two
great families of birds, the cranes and the parrots. The cranes
are extremely sociable and live in most excellent relations, not
only with their congeners, but also with most aquatic birds.
Their prudence is really astonishing, so also their intelligence;
they grasp the new conditions in a moment, and act accordingly.
Their sentries always keep watch around a flock which is feeding
or resting, and the hunters know well how difficult it is to
approach them. If man has succeeded in surprising them, they will
never return to the same place without having sent out one single
scout first, and a party of scouts afterwards; and when the
reconnoitring party returns and reports that there is no danger,
a second group of scouts is sent out to verify the first report,
before the whole band moves. With kindred species the cranes
contract real friendship; and in captivity there is no bird, save
the also sociable and highly intelligent parrot, which enters
into such real friendship with man. "It sees in man, not a
master, but a friend, and endeavours to manifest it," Brehm
concludes from a wide personal experience. The crane is in
continual activity from early in the morning till late in the
night; but it gives a few hours only in the morning to the task
of searching its food, chiefly vegetable. All the remainder of
the day is given to society life. "It picks up small pieces of
wood or small stones, throws them in the air and tries to catch
them; it bends its neck, opens its wings, dances, jumps, runs
about, and tries to manifest by all means its good disposition of
mind, and always it remains graceful and beautiful."(21) As it
lives in society it has almost no enemies, and though Brehm
occasionally saw one of them captured by a crocodile, he wrote
that except the crocodile he knew no enemies of the crane. It
eschews all of them by its proverbial prudence; and it attains,
as a rule, a very old age. No wonder that for the maintenance of
the species the crane need not rear a numerous offspring; it
usually hatches but two eggs. As to its superior intelligence, it
is sufficient to say that all observers are unanimous in
recognizing that its intellectual capacities remind one very much
of those of man.
The other extremely sociable bird, the parrot, stands, as
known, at the very top of the whole feathered world for the
development of its intelligence. Brehm has so admirably summed up
the manners of life of the parrot, that I cannot do better than
translate the following sentence:--
"Except in the pairing season, they live in very numerous
societies or bands. They choose a place in the forest to stay
there, and thence they start every morning for their hunting
expeditions. The members of each band remain faithfully attached
to each other, and they share in common good or bad luck. All
together they repair in the morning to a field, or to a garden,
or to a tree, to feed upon fruits. They post sentries to keep
watch over the safety of the whole band, and are attentive to
their warnings. In case of danger, all take to flight, mutually
supporting each other, and all simultaneously return to their
resting-place. In a word, they always live closely united."
They enjoy society of other birds as well. In India, the jays and
crows come together from many miles round, to spend the night in
company with the parrots in the bamboo thickets. When the parrots
start hunting, they display the most wonderful intelligence,
prudence, and capacity of coping with circumstances. Take, for
instance, a band of white cacadoos in Australia. Before starting to
plunder a corn-field, they first send out a reconnoitring party
which occupies the highest trees in the vicinity of the field, while
other scouts perch upon the intermediate trees between the field and
the forest and transmit the signals. If the report runs "All right,"
a score of cacadoos will separate from the bulk of the band, take a
flight in the air, and then fly towards the trees nearest to the
field. They also will scrutinize the neighbourhood for a long while,
and only then will they give the signal for general advance, after
which the whole band starts at once and plunders the field in no
time. The Australian settlers have the greatest difficulties in
beguiling the prudence of the parrots; but if man, with all his art
and weapons, has succeeded in killing some of them, the cacadoos
become so prudent and watchful that they henceforward baffle all
stratagems.(22)
There can be no doubt that it is the practice of life in
society which enables the parrots to attain that very high level
of almost human intelligence and almost human feelings which we
know in them. Their high intelligence has induced the best
naturalists to describe some species, namely the grey parrot, as
the "birdman." As to their mutual attachment it is known that
when a parrot has been killed by a hunter, the others fly over
the corpse of their comrade with shrieks of complaints and
"themselves fall the victims of their friendship," as Audubon
said; and when two captive parrots, though belonging to two
different species, have contracted mutual friendship, the
accidental death of one of the two friends has sometimes been
followed by the death from grief and sorrow of the other friend.
It is no less evident that in their societies they find
infinitely more protection than they possibly might find in any
ideal development of beak and claw. Very few birds of prey or
mammals dare attack any but the smaller species of parrots, and
Brehm is absolutely right in saying of the parrots, as he also
says of the cranes and the sociable monkeys, that they hardly
have any enemies besides men; and he adds: "It is most probable
that the larger parrots succumb chiefly to old age rather than
die from the claws of any enemies." Only man, owing to his still
more superior intelligence and weapons, also derived from
association, succeeds in partially destroying them. Their very
longevity would thus appear as a result of their social life.
Could we not say the same as regards their wonderful memory,
which also must be favoured in its development by society--life
and by longevity accompanied by a full enjoyment of bodily and
mental faculties till a very old age?
As seen from the above, the war of each against all is not
the law of nature. Mutual aid is as much a law of nature as
mutual struggle, and that law will become still more apparent
when we have analyzed some other associations of birds and those
of the mammalia. A few hints as to the importance of the law of
mutual aid for the evolution of the animal kingdom have already
been given in the preceding pages; but their purport will still
better appear when, after having given a few more illustrations,
we shall be enabled presently to draw therefrom our conclusions.
NOTES:
1. Origin of Species, chap. iii, p. 62 of first edition.
2. Nineteenth Century, Feb. 1888, p. 165.
3. Leaving aside the pre-Darwinian writers, like Toussenel, Fee,
and many others, several works containing many striking instances
of mutual aid--chiefly, however, illustrating animal
intelligence were issued previously to that date. I may mention
those of Houzeau, Les facultes etales des animaux, 2 vols.,
Brussels, 1872; L. Buchner's Aus dem Geistesleben der Thiere, 2nd
ed. in 1877; and Maximilian Perty's Ueber das Seelenleben der
Thiere, Leipzig, 1876. Espinas published his most remarkable
work, Les Societes animales, in 1877, and in that work he pointed
out the importance of animal societies, and their bearing upon
the preservation of species, and entered upon a most valuable
discussion of the origin of societies. In fact, Espinas's book
contains all that has been written since upon mutual aid, and
many good things besides. If I nevertheless make a special
mention of Kessler's address, it is because he raised mutual aid
to the height of a law much more important in evolution than the
law of mutual struggle. The same ideas were developed next year
(in April 1881) by J. Lanessan in a lecture published in 1882
under this title: La lutte pour l'existence et l'association pour
la lutte. G. Romanes's capital work, Animal Intelligence, was
issued in 1882, and followed next year by the Mental Evolution in
Animals. About the same time (1883), Buchner published another
work, Liebe und Liebes-Leben in der Thierwelt, a second edition
of which was issued in 1885. The idea, as seen, was in the air.
4. Memoirs (Trudy) of the St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists,
vol. xi. 1880.
5. George J. Romanes's Animal Intelligence, 1st ed. p. 233.
6. Pierre Huber's Les fourmis indigees, Geneve, 1861; Forel's
Recherches sur les fourmis de la Suisse, Zurich, 1874, and J.T.
Moggridge's Harvesting Ants and Trapdoor Spiders, London, 1873
and 1874, ought to be in the hands of every boy and girl. See
also: Blanchard's Metamorphoses des Insectes, Paris, 1868; J.H.
Fabre's Souvenirs entomologiques, Paris, 1886; Ebrard's Etudes
des moeurs des fourmis, Geneve, 1864; Sir John Lubbock's Ants,
Bees, and Wasps, and so on.
7. Forel's Recherches, pp. 244, 275, 278. Huber's description of
the process is admirable. It also contains a hint as to the
possible origin of the instinct (popular edition, pp. 158, 160).
See Appendix II.
8. The agriculture of the ants is so wonderful that for a long
time it has been doubted. The fact is now so well proved by Mr.
Moggridge, Dr. Lincecum, Mr. MacCook, Col. Sykes, and Dr. Jerdon,
that no doubt is possible. See an excellent summary of evidence
in Mr. Romanes's work. See also Die Pilzgaerten einiger
Sud-Amerikanischen Ameisen, by Alf. Moeller, in Schimper's Botan.
Mitth. aus den Tropen, vi. 1893.
9. This second principle was not recognized at once. Former
observers often spoke of kings, queens, managers, and so on; but
since Huber and Forel have published their minute observations,
no doubt is possible as to the free scope left for every
individual's initiative in whatever the ants do, including their
wars.
10. H.W. Bates, The Naturalist on the River Amazons, ii. 59 seq.
11. N. Syevertsoff, Periodical Phenomena in the Life of Mammalia,
Birds, and Reptiles of Voroneje, Moscow, 1855 (in Russian).
12. A. Brehm, Life of Animals, iii. 477; all quotations after the
French edition.
13. Bates, p. 151.
14. Catalogue raisonne des oiseaux de la faune pontique, in
Demidoff's Voyage; abstracts in Brehm, iii. 360. During their
migrations birds of prey often associate. One flock, which H.
Seebohm saw crossing the Pyrenees, represented a curious
assemblage of "eight kites, one crane, and a peregrine falcon"
(The Birds of Siberia, 1901, p. 417).
15. Birds in the Northern Shires, p. 207.
16. Max. Perty, Ueber das Seelenleben der Thiere (Leipzig, 1876),
pp. 87, 103.
17. G. H. Gurney, The House-Sparrow (London, 1885), p. 5.
18. Dr. Elliot Coues, Birds of the Kerguelen Island, in
Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, vol. xiii. No. 2, p. 11.
19. Brehm, iv. 567.
20. As to the house-sparrows, a New Zealand observer, Mr. T.W.
Kirk, described as follows the attack of these "impudent" birds
upon an "unfortunate" hawk.--"He heard one day a most unusual
noise, as though all the small birds of the country had joined in
one grand quarrel. Looking up, he saw a large hawk (C. gouldi--
a carrion feeder) being buffeted by a flock of sparrows. They
kept dashing at him in scores, and from all points at once. The
unfortunate hawk was quite powerless. At last, approaching some
scrub, the hawk dashed into it and remained there, while the
sparrows congregated in groups round the bush, keeping up a
constant chattering and noise" (Paper read before the New Zealand
Institute; Nature, Oct. 10, 1891).
21. Brehm, iv. 671 seq.
22. R. Lendenfeld, in Der zoologische Garten, 1889.
CHAPTER II
MUTUAL AID AMONG ANIMALS (continued)
Migrations of birds. Breeding associations. Autumn
societies. Mammals: small number of unsociable species.
Hunting associations of wolves, lions, etc. Societies of
rodents; of ruminants; of monkeys. Mutual Aid in the struggle
for life. Darwin's arguments to prove the struggle for life
within the species. Natural checks to over-multiplication.
Supposed extermination of intermediate links. Elimination of
competition in Nature.
As soon as spring comes back to the temperate zone, myriads
and myriads of birds which are scattered over the warmer regions
of the South come together in numberless bands, and, full of
vigour and joy, hasten northwards to rear their offspring. Each
of our hedges, each grove, each ocean cliff, and each of the
lakes and ponds with which Northern America, Northern Europe, and
Northern Asia are dotted tell us at that time of the year the
tale of what mutual aid means for the birds; what force, energy,
and protection it confers to every living being, however feeble
and defenceless it otherwise might be. Take, for instance, one of
the numberless lakes of the Russian and Siberian Steppes. Its
shores are peopled with myriads of aquatic birds, belonging to at
least a score of different species, all living in perfect
peace--all protecting one another.
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