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 be supported 

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

 N. America migrates in such vast bodies, that when they 

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

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

 precipice 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 very common 

 instinct is of any service to the species ? It has been re- 

 marked! 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."} And I have seen 

 domestic pigeons attack and badly wound sick or young and 

 fallen birds. 



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

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

 wild Hen of India, as I am informed by Mr. Myth, chuckles 

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



• [The note of interrogation i* in the MS. — G. J. II.] 



t \V. Son. pr. Art of Veer 8t liking, p. L':t. 



X Corse, in Asiatic A' . vol. iii, p. 272. This fact is the more 



ftr:uiL,'<- ru an Elephant which had escaped bom h pit wai seen by man] 



witnesses to stop hum a^-i-i with Ins trunk his companion in getting out of 



the pit [Atkanama, 1840, p. 888). Oapt Boliran, K.N., informs me thai he 



watched for more than Ball an honr, :it the Falkland Islands, a Logger* 



I 1 Dnck defending a wounded Upland Goose from the repeated attache 



of u Carrion Hawk. The upland g oae lirst took t'> the water, and the duck 



alongside her, always defending her with its strong beak] when 



the goose Brawled H-in.r.-, the duck followed, going round and round her, and 



when the goose again took to the sea tli" dui k was 'till rigorously defending 



heri yet at <>t ln-r times thii duck with this goose, for their 



food imil place of habitation are utterly different. I rery much fear, from 



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



trihote this conduct in the dusk t'' hatred of the carrion hawk rather 



than to beoerolenoe i'>r the t,">ose. 



§ Ber. b. Jeuyns, '• ■ n* in Natural Sieiorg, 1846, p. luo. 



17 



