LEAF AND TENDRIL 



the summer. Crows, for instance, have their rook- 

 eries, where vast numbers congregate to pass the 

 winter nights, and they usually keep in bands or 

 loose flocks during the winter days. Apparently, 

 this clannishness in winter is for social cheer and 

 good-fellowship alone. As they roost in naked, 

 exposed treetops, they could not, it seems to me, 

 perceptibly shield one another from the cold ; while 

 it is reasonable to think that the greater scarcity 

 of food at this season would naturally cause them 

 to scatter. But the centripetal force, so to speak, of 

 the social instinct, triumphs over all else. Many 

 species of our birds flock in the fall — the various 

 blackbirds, the cedar-birds, the goldfinches, the 

 siskins, the snowbirds, the tree and bank swallows, 

 to say nothing of the waterfowl — some to migrate 

 and some to pass the winter here. In similar condi- 

 tions or similar stress of circumstances, human 

 beings would probably act in a similar way; we 

 should migrate in herds, or face some common 

 calamity in large aggregates. 



Indeed, the social instinct seems radically the 

 same in all forms of animal life. The loneliness of 

 a domestic animal separated from the herd, the 

 homesickness of a dog or a horse when removed 

 to a strange place, do not seem to differ very much 

 from the feelings we experience under like circum- 

 stances. Attachment to places, attachment to per- 

 sons, attachment to one another, to home and to 

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