WAYS OF NATURE 



have carried over from our remote animal ancestors. 

 However this may be, it is certain that the sensi 

 tiveness of birds and quadrupeds to the condition 

 of one another, their sense of a common danger, of 

 food supplies, of the direction of home under all cir 

 cumstances, point to the possession of a power which 

 is only rudimentary in us. 



Some observers explain these things on the theory 

 that the flocks of birds have leaders, and that their 

 surprising evolutions are guided by calls or signals 

 from these leaders, too quick or too fine for our eyes 

 or ears to catch. I suppose they would explain the 

 movements of the schools of fish and the simulta 

 neous movements of a large number of land animals 

 on the same theory. I cannot accept this explana 

 tion. It is harder for me to believe that a flock of 

 birds has a code of calls or signals for all its evolu 

 tions now right, now left, now mount, now swoop 

 which each individual understands on the instant, 

 or that the hosts of the wild pigeons had their cap 

 tains and signals, than to believe that out of the flock 

 ing instinct there has grown some other instinct or 

 faculty, less understood, but equally potent, that puts 

 all the members of a flock in such complete rapport 

 with one another that the purpose and the desire of 

 one become the purpose and the desire of all. There 

 is nothing in this state of things analogous to a mili 

 tary organization. The relation among the mem 

 bers of the flock is rather that of creatures sharing 

 98 



