238 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 



birds and insects, and such were the memorable 

 stampedes of the bison hordes on the American 

 plains in j^ears gone by. Kropotkin saw on the 

 Siberian steppes one autumn ' thousands and 

 thousands ' of fallow deer come together from an 

 area as large as Great Britain at a point on the 

 Amur River in an unprecedented exodus to the 

 lowlands on the other side (20). How these scat- 

 tered thousands knew when to start so as to arrive 

 at the river at the same time, and how they knew 

 the direction to travel and found their way so 

 well, are mysteries which man can as yet only 

 wonder at. More marvellous yet — more marvel- 

 lous, perhaps, than the concurrent action of any 

 other animal, for it implies the most accurate 

 time-keeping extending over many years — are the 

 annual festivals of the palolo, an annelid living 

 among the interstices of the coral reefs .of some 

 of the islands of the South Pacific. About three 

 o'clock on the morning following the third quarter 

 of the October moon, these worms invariably 

 appear on the surface of the sea, swarming in 

 great numbers. Just after sunrise their bodies 

 begin to break to pieces, and by nine o'clock no 

 trace of them is left. On the morning following 

 the third quarter of the November moon they 

 appear again, but usually in smaller numbers. After 

 that they are seen no more till the next October. 

 This annual swarming is a phenomenon connected 

 with reproduction, the ova escaping from the 

 broken bodies of the females and, after being 

 fertilised by the free-floating sperms, sinking 



