408 LAW AND PUNISHMENT. 



the dislodged martin collected thirty or forty of its fellows, 

 who dragged out the intruder, took him to a certain grass- 

 plot, and there killed him. And similar co-operation in 

 similar kinds of punishment is common in dealing with bird 

 intruders. The basis of such co-operation is a feeling of 

 inability singly to punish an offender, and a knowledge that 

 union gives strength as well as courage, and can effect 

 readily what individual effort could never hope to achieve. 



In certain cases a weak animal, instead of seeking the 

 aid of a number of its fellows, contents itself by soliciting 

 the good offices of one a sufficiently powerful and brave one 

 to act efficiently as its own substitute in the execution of 

 vengeance. And small dogs, for instance, sometimes show 

 great sagacity in their selection of a champion, and take 

 great pains to procure him^ travelling long distances for the 

 purpose. 



In such cases the animal selected appears to accept the 

 office pressed upon it, travels with its oppressed companion 

 to the residence of the bully who has ill-used that companion, 

 discharges its duty of severely punishing the tyrant perhaps 

 by throttling or worrying him to death and then goes its 

 way to its home, having received, we cannot doubt, the 

 thanks of the befriended animal. 



