OF WILD ANIMALS 229 



of the clan are responsible for its safety, and therefore do they 

 demand obedience to their orders. They have their commands, 

 and they have a sign language by which they convey them in 

 terms that are silent but unmistakable. They order "Halt," 

 and the herd stops, at once. At the command "Attention," 

 each herd member "freezes" where he stands, and intently 

 looks, listens and scents the air. At the order "Feed at will," 

 the tension slowly relaxes; but if the order is "Fly!" the 

 whole herd is off in a body, as if propelled by one mind and one 

 power. 



My first knowledge of this law of the flock came down to me 

 from the blue ether when I first saw, in my boyhood, a V-- 

 shaped flock of Canada geese cleaving the sky with straight 

 and steady flight, and perfect alignment. Even in my boyish 

 mind I realized that the well-ordered progress of the wild geese 

 was in obedience to Intelligence and Flock Law. Later on, 

 I saw on the Jersey sands the mechanical sweeps and curves 

 and doubles of flying flocks of sandpipers and sanderlings, as 

 absolutely perfect in obedience to their leaders as the slats of a 

 Venetian blind. 



A herd of about thirty elephants, under the influence of a 

 still alarm and sign signals, once vanished from the brush in 

 front of me so quickly and so silently that it seemed uncanny. 

 One single note of command from a gibbon troop leader is 

 sufficient to set the whole company in instant motion, fleeing 

 at speed and in good order, with not a sound save the swish of 

 the small branches that serve as the rungs of their ladder of 

 flight. 



In the actual practice of herd leadership in species of rumi- 

 nant animals, the largest and most spectacular bull elk or bison 

 is not always the leader. Frequently it has been observed 

 that a wise old cow is the actual leader and director of the 

 herd, and that "what she says, goes." This was particularly 

 remarked to me by James McNaney during the course of our 

 "last buffalo hunt" in Montana, in 1886. From 1880 to 1884 



