Ornithological Observations; and Reflections in Shetland. 349 



mixture of species of the birds, with the wide space over which 

 they were distributed, the remoteness, too, of the island and 

 its being untenanted either b}^ man or other predatory animals, 

 make the observation a very remarkable one. Moreover, 

 the writer had observed it before, in 1901, which establishes 

 the habitual character of the phenomenon. Mr. Pearson says 

 that no signal was perceptible, but what signal, or purpose for 

 a signal, can we possibly imagine ? Thousands of birds — - 

 Terns, Gulls, Skuas, Ducks — clustered together in a remote, 

 northern island, otherwise uninhabited, most of them incuba- 

 ting, all intent upon, if not actually occupied with their pro- 

 creant duties. One, amongst them all, steps, or flies forth, and 

 with some special motions of its wings or body, or by a cry, 

 or cries, amidst the great universal one, commands, exhorts, 

 or, in some manner, signifies to this multitude of self-centred 

 beings that they shall all take the air for a few minutes before 

 resettling — or resettles them also — and so repeats, at short, 

 irregular intervals. Is such a thing reasonably conceivable ? I 

 say that it is not, and that, if it were the case, birds would not 

 be birds, as we know them, but a sort of non-human entities 

 acting humanly — though, even so, without any conceivable 

 motive — after a fashion that we have no right to postulate. 



It may be said, however, that a bird, acting as thus imagined, 

 would be a drill-sergeant, rather than a leader, and that precise 

 signs and signals go beyond merely following the example of 

 some particular chosen individual in all its actions and doings. 

 Since, however, any indifferent member of the flock, or many 

 together, may, at any moment, fly up from it, without the 

 rest being affected, it is less difficult to imagine the attention 

 of the whole flock being caught by some distinctive action on 

 the part of any individual belonging to it, whether deputed 

 or not, than by some special one acting as all act. Nor is it 

 for those who believe in ' hereditary drill,' in birds, to take 

 exception to hereditary drill-sergeants. Quite as untenable, to 

 my mind, both here and according to all my own observations, 

 is the theory of a leader — a single individual who — distin- 

 guishable, in some unknown way, by thousands of closely 

 similar individuals from all the other thousands, or, if not, 

 then, without distinction, kept separately in view by all, 

 over a wide, crowded space — has every, or certain of his actions 

 (in themselves quite ordinary), blindly and unanimously 

 followed, even though, so far as is discernible or can be con- 

 jectured, these are of no special importance for the welfare 

 either of his own or of other species, also, that consent to be 

 led by him ; since, otherwise, we must suppose that each of 

 the species taking part, as one whole, in these movements, 

 has its own leader, and that they all act in concert. Such 

 suppositions appear to me to be absurd, and they rest on no 



