HUMAN TRAITS IN THE ANIMALS 



Of course among the bees there is cooperation 

 and division of labor, but how much conscious 

 inteUigence enters into the matter is beyond finding 

 out. 



Leadership among the animals, when it occurs, 

 as among savage tribes, usually falls to the strong, 

 to the most capable. And such leaders are self- 

 elected: there is nothing like a democracy in the 

 animal world. Troops of wild horses are said always 

 to have a leader, and it is probable that bands of 

 elk and reindeer do also. Flocks of migrating geese 

 and swans are supposed to be led by the strongest 

 old males; but among our flocking small birds I 

 have never been able to discover anything like lead- 

 ership. The whole flock acts as a unit, and performs 

 its astonishing evolutions without leaders or signals. 



In my youth, upon the farm, I observed that in 

 a dairy of cows there was always one master cow, 

 one to whose authoritative sniflf, or gesture, or 

 thrust, all others yielded, and she was usually the 

 most quiet and peaceful cow in the herd. 



The male animal, as compared with the female, 

 is usually the more aggressive and domineering, 

 except among birds of prey, where the reverse is 

 true. Roosevelt says that a band of antelope, as of 

 elk and deer, is ordinarily led by an old doe, but 

 that when danger threatens, a buck may spring to 

 the leadership. 



In the breeding season the pronghorn buck has 

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