348 THE THEORIES OF EVOLUTION 



"Wherever natural conditions are unfavourable," 

 Kropotkin writes, "the climate too rigorous, food too 

 scarce, wherever life triumphs with difficulty over the 

 forces of destruction, it is not a struggle between indi- 

 viduals of the same species which we observe but, on 

 the contrary, mutual aid, which becomes an important 

 factor in the preservation of life and the evolution of 

 the species. The study of the animal world reveals 

 everywhere the existence of a social life not only 

 among ants and bees but even among animals like 

 crabs whose groupings are not as noticeable nor as 

 permanent. Among the vertebrates, birds are most 

 notable for their social instincts. There are associa- 

 tions of birds of prey for hunting, of herons for fish- 

 ing, societies of parrots, meetings preceding migra- 

 tions, etc. The shrewdest and cleverest are always 

 eliminated in favour of those who appreciate best the 

 advantages of social life and of mutual aid. The 

 odds are very uneven between a beast of prey armed 

 with the most perfect weapons and other animals that 

 lack those advantages. But the issue of the fight may 

 at times be very different from what it would be if 

 individual death-and-life struggle were nature's law. 

 We quote from Kropotkin the following episode 

 related by the famous Russian ornithologist, Siever- 

 tzofF. 7 



"Watch, for example, one of the numberless lakes 



i Sievertzoff. Periodical Phenomena, Moscow, 1855 (in Russian). 



