4 ANIMAL LIFE AND SOCIAL GROWTH 



barefooted to the beach on a warm summer's day, 

 his feet were so poorly co-ordinated with the rest 

 of his body that toes, or bits of his heel came off 

 in the warm, sticky asphalt; and consider his 

 reaction on returning after the wounds had healed 

 to find a row of doll-like children developed from 

 the missing fragments! 



It is to animals with such relatively slack sys- 

 tems that an animal community is to be compared 

 rather than to the closely organized bee, or dog, 

 or man; though the community is much more 

 poorly organized than are the simplest animals 

 and should be thought of as a quasi-organism 

 rather than as a full-fledged one. 



In human society we are accustomed to the 

 idea of community organization. A village is 

 composed of a number of people who are more or 

 less grouped into families. These individuals 

 and families are woven into a unit not only be- 

 cause they live in the same locality and so are 

 forced to meet the same sort of problems as to 

 food supply, protection from storms and from 

 cold; they are also connected by numerous other 

 bonds including those of kinship, of occupation 

 and perhaps of tradition. All such forces knit 

 the community into a working unit which at 

 times may be remarkably effective. At best the 

 whole community organization is loose; individuals 



