24 ANIMALS AT WORK AND PLAY 



speaking, they do not live in society at all. They 

 live in association ; but that is a different matter, 

 often the result of chance such as travelling on 

 the same lines of migration, or meeting where food 

 is present in unusual abundance. But that is quite 

 a different matter from society as we understand 

 society, which is association for reciprocal benefit, 

 and nearly always results in some form of division 

 of labour and separation of classes. The appearance 

 of social life in the case of all the ruminant animals, 

 deer, wild cattle, antelopes, and wild sheep, is some- 

 what misleading. They are nearly always seen to- 

 gether in herds, and the association is voluntary. But 

 through the ages that they have thus associated they 

 have made no progress in their manner of life, and 

 have not developed the least tendency towards form- 

 ing the rudiments of 'community/ The explanation 

 of this is probably to be found in the motive which 

 makes them gregarious. Apart from a liking for 

 * company ' which they all share, the main motive 

 for their assembling together is fear, sentiment feu 

 fecond en pr ogres, as M. George Leroy remarks in 

 his Lettres Sur les Animaux. Among these animals 

 it has developed one social device, the habitual plac- 

 ing of sentinels, whose place is taken in turn by 

 members of the herd. It is division of labour, and 

 shows that the idea is understood by them. But it 



