Struggle for existence. -- Mutual Aid -- a law of Nature and
chief factor of progressive evolution. -- Invertebrates. -- Ants
and Bees -- Birds: Hunting and fishing associations. --
Sociability. -- Mutual protection among small birds. -- Cranes;
parrots.
The conception of struggle for existence as a factor of
evolution, introduced into science by Darwin and Wallace, has
permitted us to embrace an immensely wide range of phenomena in
one single generalization, which soon became the very basis of
our philosophical, biological, and sociological speculations. An
immense variety of facts: -- adaptations of function and
structure of organic beings to their surroundings; physiological
and anatomical evolution; intellectual progress, and moral
development itself, which we formerly used to explain by so many
different causes, were embodied by Darwin in one general
conception. We understood them as continued endeavours -- as a
struggle against adverse circumstances -- for such a development
of individuals, races, species and societies, as would result in
the greatest possible fulness, variety, and intensity of life. It
may be that at the outset Darwin himself was not fully aware of
the generality of the factor which he first invoked for
explaining one series only of facts relative to the accumulation
of individual variations in incipient species. But he foresaw
that the term which he was introducing into science would lose
its philosophical and its only true meaning if it were to be used
in its narrow sense only -- that of a struggle between separate
individuals for the sheer means of existence. And at the very
beginning of his memorable work he insisted upon the term being
taken in its "large and metaphorical sense including dependence
of one being on another, and including (which is more important)
not only the life of the individual, but success in leaving
progeny."1
While he himself was chiefly using the term in its narrow
sense for his own special purpose, he warned his followers
against committing the error (which he seems once to have
committed himself) of overrating its narrow meaning. In The
Descent of Man he gave some powerful pages to illustrate its
proper, wide sense. He pointed out how, in numberless animal
societies, the struggle between separate individuals for the
means of existence disappears, how struggle is replaced by
co-operation, and how that substitution results in the
development of intellectual and moral faculties which secure to
the species the best conditions for survival. He intimated that
in such cases the fittest are not the physically strongest, nor
the cunningest, but those who learn to combine so as mutually to
support each other, strong and weak alike, for the welfare of the
community. "Those communities," he wrote, "which included the
greatest number of the most sympathetic members would flourish
best, and rear the greatest number of offspring" (2nd edit., p.
163). The term, which originated from the narrow Malthusian
conception of competition between each and all, thus lost its
narrowness in the mind of one who knew Nature.
Unhappily, these remarks, which might have become the basis
of most fruitful researches, were overshadowed by the masses of
facts gathered for the purpose of illustrating the consequences
of a real competition for life. Besides, Darwin never attempted
to submit to a closer investigation the relative importance of
the two aspects under which the struggle for existence appears in
the animal world, and he never wrote the work he proposed to
write upon the natural checks to over-multiplication, although
that work would have been the crucial test for appreciating the
real purport of individual struggle. Nay, on the very pages just
mentioned, amidst data disproving the narrow Malthusian
conception of struggle, the old Malthusian leaven reappeared --
namely, in Darwin's remarks as to the alleged inconveniences of
maintaining the "weak in mind and body" in our civilized
societies (ch. v). As if thousands of weak-bodied and infirm
poets, scientists, inventors, and reformers, together with other
thousands of so-called "fools" and "weak-minded enthusiasts,"
were not the most precious weapons used by humanity in its
struggle for existence by intellectual and moral arms, which
Darwin himself emphasized in those same chapters of Descent of
Man.
It happened with Darwin's theory as it always happens with
theories having any bearing upon human relations. Instead of
widening it according to his own hints, his followers narrowed it
still more. And while Herbert Spencer, starting on independent
but closely allied lines, attempted to widen the inquiry into
that great question, "Who are the fittest?" especially in the
appendix to the third edition of the Data of Ethics, the
numberless followers of Darwin reduced the notion of struggle for
existence to its narrowest limits. They came to conceive the
animal world as a world of perpetual struggle among half-starved
individuals, thirsting for one another's blood. They made modern
literature resound with the war-cry of woe to the vanquished, as
if it were the last word of modern biology. They raised the
"pitiless" struggle for personal advantages to the height of a
biological principle which man must submit to as well, under the
menace of otherwise succumbing in a world based upon mutual
extermination. Leaving aside the economists who know of natural
science but a few words borrowed from second-hand vulgarizers, we
must recognize that even the most authorized exponents of
Darwin's views did their best to maintain those false ideas. In
fact, if we take Huxley, who certainly is considered as one of
the ablest exponents of the theory of evolution, were we not
taught by him, in a paper on the 'Struggle for Existence and its
Bearing upon Man,' that,
"from the point of view of the moralist, the animal world is on
about the same level as a gladiators' show. The creatures are
fairly well treated, and set to, fight hereby the strongest, the
swiftest, and the cunningest live to fight another day. The
spectator has no need to turn his thumb down, as no quarter is
given."
Or, further down in the same article, did he not tell us
that, as among animals, so among primitive men,
"the weakest and stupidest went to the wall, while the toughest
and shrewdest, those who were best fitted to cope with their
circumstances, but not the best in another way, survived. Life
was a continuous free fight, and beyond the limited and temporary
relations of the family, the Hobbesian war of each against all
was the normal state of existence."2
In how far this view of nature is supported by fact, will be
seen from the evidence which will be here submitted to the reader
as regards the animal world, and as regards primitive man. But it
may be remarked at once that Huxley's view of nature had as
little claim to be taken as a scientific deduction as the
opposite view of Rousseau, who saw in nature but love, peace, and
harmony destroyed by the accession of man. In fact, the first
walk in the forest, the first observation upon any animal
society, or even the perusal of any serious work dealing with
animal life (D'Orbigny's, Audubon's, Le Vaillant's, no matter
which), cannot but set the naturalist thinking about the part
taken by social life in the life of animals, and prevent him from
seeing in Nature nothing but a field of slaughter, just as this
would prevent him from seeing in Nature nothing but harmony and
peace. Rousseau had committed the error of excluding the
beak-and-claw fight from his thoughts; and Huxley committed the
opposite error; but neither Rousseau's optimism nor Huxley's
pessimism can be accepted as an impartial interpretation of
nature.
As soon as we study animals -- not in laboratories and
museums only, but in the forest and the prairie, in the steppe
and the mountains -- we at once perceive that though there is an
immense amount of warfare and extermination going on amidst
various species, and especially amidst various classes of
animals, there is, at the same time, as much, or perhaps even
more, of mutual support, mutual aid, and mutual defence amidst
animals belonging to the same species or, at least, to the same
society. Sociability is as much a law of nature as mutual
struggle. Of course it would be extremely difficult to estimate,
however roughly, the relative numerical importance of both these
series of facts. But if we resort to an indirect test, and ask
Nature: "Who are the fittest: those who are continually at war
with each other, or those who support one another?" we at once
see that those animals which acquire habits of mutual aid are
undoubtedly the fittest. They have more chances to survive, and
they attain, in their respective classes, the highest development
of intelligence and bodily organization. If the numberless facts
which can be brought forward to support this view are taken into
account, we may safely say that mutual aid is as much a law of
animal life as mutual struggle, but that, as a factor of
evolution, it most probably has a far greater importance,
inasmuch as it favours the development of such habits and
characters as insure the maintenance and further development of
the species, together with the greatest amount of welfare and
enjoyment of life for the individual, with the least waste of
energy.
Of the scientific followers of Darwin, the first, as far as I
know, who understood the full purport of Mutual Aid as a law of
Nature and the chief factor of evolution, was a well-known
Russian zoologist, the late Dean of the St. Petersburg
University, Professor Kessler. He developed his ideas in an
address which he delivered in January 1880, a few months before
his death, at a Congress of Russian naturalists; but, like so
many good things published in the Russian tongue only, that
remarkable address remains almost entirely unknown.3
"As a zoologist of old standing," he felt bound to protest
against the abuse of a term -- the struggle for existence --
borrowed from zoology, or, at least, against overrating its
importance. Zoology, he said, and those sciences which deal with
man, continually insist upon what they call the pitiless law of
struggle for existence. But they forget the existence of another
law which may be described as the law of mutual aid, which law,
at least for the animals, is far more essential than the former.
He pointed out how the need of leaving progeny necessarily brings
animals together, and, "the more the individuals keep together,
the more they mutually support each other, and the more are the
chances of the species for surviving, as well as for making
further progress in its intellectual development." "All classes
of animals," he continued, "and especially the higher ones,
practise mutual aid," and he illustrated his idea by examples
borrowed from the life of the burying beetles and the social life
of birds and some mammalia. The examples were few, as might have
been expected in a short opening address, but the chief points
were clearly stated; and, after mentioning that in the evolution
of mankind mutual aid played a still more prominent part,
Professor Kessler concluded as follows: --
"I obviously do not deny the struggle for existence, but I
maintain that the progressive development of the animal kingdom,
and especially of mankind, is favoured much more by mutual
support than by mutual struggle.... All organic beings have two
essential needs: that of nutrition, and that of propagating the
species. The former brings them to a struggle and to mutual
extermination, while the needs of maintaining the species bring
them to approach one another and to support one another. But I am
inclined to think that in the evolution of the organic world --
in the progressive modification of organic beings -- mutual
support among individuals plays a much more important part than
their mutual struggle."4
The correctness of the above views struck most of the Russian
zoologists present, and Syevertsoff, whose work is well known to
ornithologists and geographers, supported them and illustrated
them by a few more examples. He mentioned sone of the species of
falcons which have "an almost ideal organization for robbery,"
and nevertheless are in decay, while other species of falcons,
which practise mutual help, do thrive. "Take, on the other side,
a sociable bird, the duck," he said; "it is poorly organized on
the whole, but it practises mutual support, and it almost invades
the earth, as may be judged from its numberless varieties and
species."
The readiness of the Russian zoologists to accept Kessler's
views seems quite natural, because nearly all of them have had
opportunities of studying the animal world in the wide
uninhabited regions of Northern Asia and East Russia; and it is
impossible to study like regions without being brought to the
same ideas. I recollect myself the impression produced upon me by
the animal world of Siberia when I explored the Vitim regions in
the company of so accomplished a zoologist as my friend Polyakoff
was. We both were under the fresh impression of the Origin of
Species, but we vainly looked for the keen competition between
animals of the same species which the reading of Darwin's work
had prepared us to expect, even after taking into account the
remarks of the third chapter (p. 54). We saw plenty of
adaptations for struggling, very often in common, against the
adverse circumstances of climate, or against various enemies, and
Polyakoff wrote many a good page upon the mutual dependency of
carnivores, ruminants, and rodents in their geographical
distribution; we witnessed numbers of facts of mutual support,
especially during the migrations of birds and ruminants; but even
in the Amur and Usuri regions, where animal life swarms in
abundance, facts of real competition and struggle between higher
animals of the same species came very seldom under my notice,
though I eagerly searched for them. The same impression appears
in the works of most Russian zoologists, and it probably explains
why Kessler's ideas were so welcomed by the Russian Darwinists,
whilst like ideas are not in vogue amidst the followers of Darwin
in Western Europe.
The first thing which strikes us as soon as we begin studying
the struggle for existence under both its aspects -- direct and
metaphorical -- is the abundance of facts of mutual aid, not only
for rearing progeny, as recognized by most evolutionists, but
also for the safety of the individual, and for providing it with
the necessary food. With many large divisions of the animal
kingdom mutual aid is the rule. Mutual aid is met with even
amidst the lowest animals, and we must be prepared to learn some
day, from the students of microscopical pond-life, facts of
unconscious mutual support, even from the life of
micro-organisms. Of course, our knowledge of the life of the
invertebrates, save the termites, the ants, and the bees, is
extremely limited; and yet, even as regards the lower animals, we
may glean a few facts of well-ascertained cooperation. The
numberless associations of locusts, vanessae, cicindelae,
cicadae, and so on, are practically quite unexplored; but the
very fact of their existence indicates that they must be composed
on about the same principles as the temporary associations of
ants or bees for purposes of migration.5 As to the beetles, we
have quite well-observed facts of mutual help amidst the burying
beetles (Necrophorus). They must have some decaying organic
matter to lay their eggs in, and thus to provide their larvae
with food; but that matter must not decay very rapidly. So they
are wont to bury in the ground the corpses of all kinds of small
animals which they occasionally find in their rambles. As a rule,
they live an isolated life, but when one of them has discovered
the corpse of a mouse or of a bird, which it hardly could manage
to bury itself, it calls four, six, or ten other beetles to
perform the operation with united efforts; if necessary, they
transport the corpse to a suitable soft ground; and they bury it
in a very considerate way, without quarrelling as to which of
them will enjoy the privilege of laying its eggs in the buried
corpse. And when Gleditsch attached a dead bird to a cross made
out of two sticks, or suspended a toad to a stick planted in the
soil, the little beetles would in the same friendly way combine
their intelligences to overcome the artifice of Man. The same
combination of efforts has been noticed among the dung-beetles.
Even among animals standing at a somewhat lower stage of
organization we may find like examples. Some land-crabs of the
West Indies and North America combine in large swarms in order to
travel to the sea and to deposit therein their spawn; and each
such migration implies concert, co-operation, and mutual support.
As to the big Molucca crab (Limulus), I was struck (in 1882, at
the Brighton Aquarium) with the extent of mutual assistance which
these clumsy animals are capable of bestowing upon a comrade in
case of need. One of them had fallen upon its back in a corner of
the tank, and its heavy saucepan-like carapace prevented it from
returning to its natural position, the more so as there was in
the corner an iron bar which rendered the task still more
difficult. Its comrades came to the rescue, and for one hour's
time I watched how they endeavoured to help their
fellow-prisoner. They came two at once, pushed their friend from
beneath, and after strenuous efforts succeeded in lifting it
upright; but then the iron bar would prevent them from achieving
the work of rescue, and the crab would again heavily fall upon
its back. After many attempts, one of the helpers would go in the
depth of the tank and bring two other crabs, which would begin
with fresh forces the same pushing and lifting of their helpless
comrade. We stayed in the Aquarium for more than two hours, and,
when leaving, we again came to cast a glance upon the tank: the
work of rescue still continued! Since I saw that, I cannot refuse
credit to the observation quoted by Dr. Erasmus Darwin -- namely,
that "the common crab during the moulting season stations as
sentinel an unmoulted or hard-shelled individual to prevent
marine enemies from injuring moulted individuals in their
unprotected state."6
Facts illustrating mutual aid amidst the termites, the ants,
and the bees are so well known to the general reader, especially
through the works of Romanes, L. B?chner, and Sir John Lubbock,
that I may limit my remarks to a very few hints.7 If we take
an ants' nest, we not only see that every description of
work-rearing of progeny, foraging, building, rearing of aphides,
and so on -- is performed according to the principles of
voluntary mutual aid; we must also recognize, with Forel, that
the chief, the fundamental feature of the life of many species of
ants is the fact and the obligation for every ant of sharing its
food, already swallowed and partly digested, with every member of
the community which may apply for it. Two ants belonging to two
different species or to two hostile nests, when they occasionally
meet together, will avoid each other. But two ants belonging to
the same nest or to the same colony of nests will approach each
other, exchange a few movements with the antennae, and "if one of
them is hungry or thirsty, and especially if the other has its
crop full... it immediately asks for food." The individual thus
requested never refuses; it sets apart its mandibles, takes a
proper position, and regurgitates a drop of transparent fluid
which is licked up by the hungry ant. Regurgitating food for
other ants is so prominent a feature in the life of ants (at
liberty), and it so constantly recurs both for feeding hungry
comrades and for feeding larvae, that Forel considers the
digestive tube of the ants as consisting of two different parts,
one of which, the posterior, is for the special use of the
individual, and the other, the anterior part, is chiefly for the
use of the community. If an ant which has its crop full has been
selfish enough to refuse feeding a comrade, it will be treated as
an enemy, or even worse. If the refusal has been made while its
kinsfolk were fighting with some other species, they will fall
back upon the greedy individual with greater vehemence than even
upon the enemies themselves. And if an ant has not refused to
feed another ant belonging to an enemy species, it will be
treated by the kinsfolk of the latter as a friend. All this is
confirmed by most accurate observation and decisive
experiments.8
In that immense division of the animal kingdom which embodies
more than one thousand species, and is so numerous that the
Brazilians pretend that Brazil belongs to the ants, not to men,
competition amidst the members of the same nest, or the colony of
nests,does not exist. However terrible the wars between different
species, and whatever the atrocities committed at war-time,
mutual aid within the community, self-devotion grown into a
habit, and very often self-sacrifice for the common welfare, are
the rule. The ants and termites have renounced the "Hobbesian
war," and they are the better for it. Their wonderful nests,
their buildings, superior in relative size to those of man; their
paved roads and overground vaulted galleries; their spacious
halls and granaries; their corn-fields, harvesting and "malting"
of grain;9 their, rational methods of nursing their eggs and
larvae, and of building special nests for rearing the aphides
whom Linnaeus so picturesquely described as "the cows of the
ants"; and, finally, their courage, pluck, and, superior
intelligence -- all these are the natural outcome of the mutual
aid which they practise at every stage of their busy and
laborious lives. That mode of life also necessarily resulted in
the development of another essential feature of the life of ants:
the immense development of individual initiative which, in its
turn, evidently led to the development of that high and varied
intelligence which cannot but strike the human observer.10
If we knew no other facts from animal life than what we know
about the ants and the termites, we already might safely conclude
that mutual aid (which leads to mutual confidence, the first
condition for courage) and individual initiative (the first
condition for intellectual progress) are two factors infinitely
more important than mutual struggle in the evolution of the
animal kingdom. In fact, the ant thrives without having any of
the "protective" features which cannot be dispensed with by
animals living an isolated life. Its colour renders it
conspicuous to its enemies, and the lofty nests of many species
are conspicuous in the meadows and forests. It is not protected
by a hard carapace, and its stinging apparatus, however dangerous
when hundreds of stings are plunged into the flesh of an animal,
is not of a great value for individual defence; while the eggs
and larvae of the ants are a dainty for a great number of the
inhabitants of the forests. And yet the ants, in their thousands,
are not much destroyed by the birds, not even by the ant-eaters,
and they are dreaded by most stronger insects. When Forel emptied
a bagful of ants in a meadow, he saw that "the crickets ran away,
abandoning their holes to be sacked by the ants; the grasshoppers
and the crickets fled in all directions; the spiders and the
beetles abandoned their prey in order not to become prey
themselves; "even the nests of the wasps were taken by the ants,
after a battle during which many ants perished for the safety of
the commonwealth. Even the swiftest insects cannot escape, and
Forel often saw butterflies, gnats, flies, and so on, surprised
and killed by the ants. Their force is in mutual support and
mutual confidence. And if the ant -- apart from the still higher
developed termites -- stands at the very top of the whole class
of insects for its intellectual capacities; if its courage is
only equalled by the most courageous vertebrates; and if its
brain -- to use Darwin's words -- "is one of the most marvellous
atoms of matter in the world, perhaps more so than the brain of
man," is it not due to the fact that mutual aid has entirely
taken the place of mutual struggle in the communities of ants?
The same is true as regards the bees. These small insects,
which so easily might become the prey of so many birds, and whose
honey has so many admirers in all classes of animals from the
beetle to the bear, also have none of the protective features
derived from mimicry or otherwise, without which an isolatedly
living insect hardly could escape wholesale destruction; and yet,
owing to the mutual aid they practise, they obtain the wide
extension which we know and the intelligence we admire, By
working in common they multiply their individual forces; by
resorting to a temporary division of labour combined with the
capacity of each bee to perform every kind of work when required,
they attain such a degree of well-being and safety as no isolated
animal can ever expect to achieve however strong or well armed it
may be. In their combinations they are often more successful than
man, when he neglects to take advantage of a well-planned mutual
assistance. Thus, when a new swarm of bees is going to leave the
hive in search of a new abode, a number of bees will make a
preliminary exploration of the neighbourhood, and if they
discover a convenient dwelling-place -- say, an old basket, or
anything of the kind -- they will take possession of it, clean
it, and guard it, sometimes for a whole week, till the swarm
comes to settle therein. But how many human settlers will perish
in new countries simply for not having understood the necessity
of combining their efforts! By combining their individual
intelligences they succeed in coping with adverse circumstances,
even quite unforeseen and unusual, like those bees of the Paris
Exhibition which fastened with their resinous propolis the
shutter to a glass-plate fitted in the wall of their hive.
Besides, they display none of the sanguinary proclivities and
love of useless fighting with which many writers so readily endow
animals. The sentries which guard the entrance to the hive
pitilessly put to death the robbing bees which attempt entering
the hive; but those stranger bees which come to the hive by
mistake are left unmolested, especially if they come laden with
pollen, or are young individuals which can easily go astray.
There is no more warfare than is strictly required.
The sociability of the bees is the more instructive as
predatory instincts and laziness continue to exist among the bees
as well, and reappear each. time that their growth is favoured by
some circumstances. It is well known that there always are a
number of bees which prefer a life of robbery to the laborious
life of a worker; and that both periods of scarcity and periods
of an unusually rich supply of food lead to an increase of the
robbing class. When our crops are in and there remains but little
to gather in our meadows and fields, robbing bees become of more
frequent occurrence; while, on the other side, about the sugar
plantations of the West Indies and the sugar refineries of
Europe, robbery, laziness, and very often drunkenness become
quite usual with the bees. We thus see that anti-social instincts
continue to exist amidst the bees as well; but natural selection
continually must eliminate them, because in the long run the
practice of solidarity proves much more advantageous to the
species than the development of individuals endowed with
predatory inclinations. The cunningest and the shrewdest are
eliminated in favour of those who understand the advantages of
sociable life and mutual support.
Certainly, neither the ants, nor the bees, nor even the
termites, have risen to the conception of a higher solidarity
embodying the whole of the species. In that respect they
evidently have not attained a degree of development which we do
not find even among our political, scientific, and religious
leaders. Their social instincts hardly extend beyond the limits
of the hive or the nest. However, colonies of no less than two
hundred nests, belonging to two different species (Formica
exsecta and F. pressilabris) have been described by Forel on
Mount Tendre and Mount Sal?ve; and Forel maintains that each
member of these colonies recognizes every other member of the
colony, and that they all take part in common defence; while in
Pennsylvania Mr. MacCook saw a whole nation of from 1,600 to
1,700 nests of the mound-making ant, all living in perfect
intelligence; and Mr. Bates has described the hillocks of the
termites covering large surfaces in the "campos" -- some of the
nests being the refuge of two or three different species, and
most of them being connected by vaulted galleries or
arcades.11 Some steps towards the amalgamation of larger
divisions of the species for purposes of mutual protection are
thus met with even among the invertebrate animals.
Going now over to higher animals, we find far more instances
of undoubtedly conscious mutual help for all possible purposes,
though we must recognize at once that our knowledge even of the
life of higher animals still remains very imperfect. A large
number of facts have been accumulated by first-rate observers,
but there are whole divisions of the animal kingdom of which we
know almost nothing. Trustworthy information as regards fishes is
extremely scarce, partly owing to the difficulties of
observation, and partly because no proper attention has yet been
paid to the subject. As to the mammalia, Kessler already remarked
how little we know about their manners of life. Many of them are
nocturnal in their habits; others conceal themselves underground;
and those ruminants whose social life and migrations offer the
greatest interest do not let man approach their herds. It is
chiefly upon birds that we have the widest range of information,
and yet the social life of very many species remains but
imperfectly known. Still, we need not complain about the lack of
well-ascertained facts, as will be seen from the following.
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.12 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."13 The Urub? vultures of Brazil are as, or perhaps
even more, sociable than rooks.14 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.15
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."16
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.17 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."18 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.
Cou?s 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.19 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.20 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.21
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."22 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.23
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.
Footnotes
1 Origin of Species, chap. iii.
2 Nineteenth Century, Feb. 1888, p. 165.
3 Leaving aside the pre-Darwinian writers, like Toussenel, F?e,
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 facult?s etales des animaux, 2 vols.,
Brussels, 1872; L. B?chner'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 Soci?t?s 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), B?chner 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 See Appendix I.
6 George J. Romanes's Animal Intelligence, 1st ed. p. 233.
7 Pierre Huber's Les fourmis indig?es, G?n?ve, 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 M?tamorphoses des Insectes, Paris, 1868; J.H.
Fabre's Souvenirs entomologiques, Paris, 1886; Ebrard's Etudes
des moeurs des fourmis, G?n?ve, 1864; Sir John Lubbock's Ants,
Bees, and Wasps, and so on.
8 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.
9 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
S?d-Amerikanischen Ameisen, by Alf. Moeller, in Schimper's Botan.
Mitth. aus den Tropen, vi. 1893.
10 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.
11 H.W. Bates, The Naturalist on the River Amazons, ii. 59 seq.
12 N. Syevertsoff, Periodical Phenomena in the Life of Mammalia,
Birds, and Reptiles of Voron?je, Moscow, 1855 (in Russian).
13 A. Brehm, Life of Animals, iii. 477; all quotations after the
French edition.
14 Bates, p. 151.
15 Catalogue raisonn? des oiseaux de la faune pontique, in
D?midoff'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).
16 Birds in the Northern Shires, p. 207.
17 Max. Perty, Ueber das Seelenleben der Thiere (Leipzig, 1876),
pp. 87, 103.
18 G. H. Gurney, The House-Sparrow (London, 1885), p. 5.
19 Dr. Elliot Cou?s, Birds of the Kerguelen Island, in
Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, vol. xiii. No. 2, p. 11.
20 Brehm, iv. 567.
21 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).
22 Brehm, iv. 671 seq.
23 R. Lendenfeld, in Der zoologische Garten, 1889.
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