92 LIFE AND SPORT IN HAMPSHIRE 



individual birds of the flock in the mass, no discipline 

 as we use this word of human relations bring 

 together, start, and keep on the same sky-route the 

 birds of passage. As there is no rule, no submission 

 to rule, it must be anarchy. Yet in this state of 

 unrule, this anarchy, there is something like symmetry 

 and perfect accord. 



Unanimity and simultaneity live in these great acts 

 of birds. 



I have not seen the lemmings of Norway in migra- 

 tion, but I imagine the same features are there; and 

 in migrations of moths and butterflies, and locusts. 

 Who would suggest locust leader or moth marshal? 

 Yet if there were such authority of the human sort 

 among birds, why not among bisects and mammals, 

 which also set out on great journeys in hosts ? Leader- 

 ship, it seems to me, is out of the question. Every 

 bird, locust, moth, lemming is his own leader. There 

 are two barbarous terms in use to-day of human 

 polity, individualism and collectivism. Well, Nature, 

 for these great gatherings and adventures, suffers, and 

 joins the two. The success of the union is obvious. 

 Many birds, of course, must die on the journey or lose 

 their way ; but, compared with the host that drives on 

 straight and sure to its goal, they are only the trifling 

 few. It seems that, for the great journeys of birds 

 and other wild creatures, safety and success depend on 

 numbers. Travel, I suppose, is simplified through a 

 host. Clearly the bird travellers feel they must keep 



