MUTUAL AID AMONGST ANIMALS. 11 



harmlcssness. Stcllcr, the naturalist •u'lio visited the peninsula 

 in the last century, tells that, in the house in which he was once 

 staying-, the parents were afraid that their boy had been lost, but 

 tLey eventually found him in a wood playing with the black bears. 

 Foxes, which live isolated here, where they are hunted, are found 

 living in herds in Northern Asia, and the numerous associations 

 of the polar foxes were the plague of the naturalists who visited 

 the country in the last century. All the Kodents, such as the 

 marmots, prairie dogs, and rabbits, are sociable animals, and 

 naturalists relish in telling us about the social life of the inhabi- 

 tants of the great prairies of Asia and America. In the case 

 of such animals as the ground-squii'rels, when their houses are 

 unearthed ample provision will be found to be laid away ; and 

 although they may appear to some people to be miserly, during 

 the winter two or three of these little animals will often be 

 found to be living together. Thus it appears that very many 

 different kinds of animals, and in immense numbers, live together 

 in mutual support, and that the characters of their societies widely 

 differ in different species. 



In the class of insects the highest are the ants, bees, and wasps ; 

 of the bii'ds the highest are the parrots ; amongst the mammals the 

 highest are the apes and man ; and all these are the most sociable 

 of their class. A sociable life is a guarantee of security, and 

 therefore of the attainment of old age, and at the same time of 

 further development of the species. Mutual support is the way 

 to a higher intelligence which always reaches its highest degree 

 in the most sociable species : the highly sociable parrot has not 

 been called in vain the man-bird or the bird-man. 



AVith regard to the apes and monkeys, we know that nearly 

 all of their species are highly sociable, and that those which arii 

 not, such as the orang-outang or the gorilla, must be considered 

 as decaying species. There is a great deal of friendship displayed 

 between monkeys; and the protection which they find in their 

 vigilant societies is such that Brehm made the remark that they 

 seldom die from any enemies, but chiefly die from old age only. 

 The monkeys are always together, and it is very difficult for 

 any bird or beast of prey to surprise them, as they are always 

 on the alert. In fact, the monkeys have only one dangerous 

 enemy — the creatures which your President has taken for the 

 subject of his studies ; I allude to the snakes. 



Taking into account the whole mass of evidence showing the 

 extent of mutual aid and support in animal societies, we are bound 



