APPENDIX. 381 



The social instinct is indispensable to some animals, 

 useful to still more for the ready notice of danger, and appa- 

 rently only pleasant to some few animals. But one cannot 

 avoid thinking that this instinct is carried in some cases to 

 an injurious excess: the antelopes in S. Africa and the 

 Passenger Pigeons in N. America are followed by hosts of 

 carnivorous beasts and birds, which could hardly 1)e supported 

 in such numbers if their prey were scattered. The Bison of 

 K America migrates in such vast bodies, that when they 

 come to narrow passes in the river-clifis, the foremost, accord- 

 ing to Lewis and Clarke(?),* are often pushed over the 

 precijDice and dashed to pieces. Can we believe when a 

 wounded herbivorous animal returns to its own herd and is 

 then attacked and gored, that this cruel and xerj connnon 

 instinct is of any service to the species ? It has l^een re- 

 markedf that with Deer, only those which have been much 

 chased with dogs are led by a sense of self-preservation to 

 expel their pursued or wounded companion, who will bring 

 danger on the herd. But the fearless wild elephants will 

 " ungenerously attack one which has escaped into the jungles 

 with the bandages still upon its legs."J And I have seen 

 domestic pigeons attack and badly wound sick or young and 

 fallen birds. 



The cock-pheasant crows loudly, as everyone may hear, 

 when going to roost, and is thus betrayed to the poacher. § The 

 wild Hen of India, as I am informed l^y Mr. Blyth, chuckles 

 like her domesticated offspring, when she has laid an egg; 



* [The note of interrogation is in the MS. — Gr. J. R.] 



t W. Scroi3e, Art of Deer Stalking, p. 23. 



X Corse, in Asiatic Researches, yol. iii, p. 272, This fact is the more 

 strange as an Elephant which had escaped from a pit Avas seen by many 

 witnesses to stop and assist witli his trunk his companion in getting* out of 

 the pit {Athenceam, 1840, p. 238). Capt. Suhvan, E..N., informs me that lie 

 Avatched for more than half an hour, at the Falkland Islands, a Logger- 

 headed Duck defending a wounded Upland Goose from the repeated attacks 

 of a CaiTion Hawk. The upland goose first took to the water, and the duck 

 swam close alongside her, always defending her with its strong beak; when 

 the goose crawled ashore, the duck followed, going round and round her, and 

 when the goose again took to the sea the duck was still vigorously defending 

 her; yet at other timers this duck never associates witli this goose, for their 

 fooel and place of habitation are utterly different. I very much fear, from 

 Avhat we see of little birds chasing hawks, that it would be more philosophical 

 to attribute this conduct in the duck to hatred of the carrion hawk rather 

 than to benevolence for the goose. 



§ Eey. L. Jenyns, Observations in Natural Kisiory, 1816, p. 100. 



