WATCHING BIRDS AT A STRAW-STACK 223 



once established, would tend to weaken the old primi- 

 tive pojs^er, as an improvement on which it had arisen. 

 Thus if thought-transference exist in man, it may, 

 perhaps, represent a reversion to a more primitive and 

 generalised means of mental intercommunion, or the 

 older power may exist, and still occasionally act, or 

 even do so habitually to some extent ; in fact, it 

 may not yet have entirely died out. Possibly, also, 

 it might tend to survive, and even to some extent 

 increase, as being, in certain ways and directions, 

 superior to the more precise medium. But if so, it 

 would become — unless specially cultivated — more and 

 more limited to these directions. Certain it is that 

 people seem often to approach each other mentally 

 much more by feeling than by words, and in a 

 wonderfully short space of time. We call this insight, 

 intuitive perception, affinity, etc., — but such words do 

 not explain the process. 



Is it not possible that birds living habitually 

 together, as part of a crowd, may have acquired the 

 faculty of thinking and acting all together, or in masses, 

 each one's mind being a part of the general mind of the 

 whole band, but each possessing, also, its individual 

 mind and will, by virtue of which it is enabled to sus- 

 pend its general crowd-acting, and act individually? 



Perhaps a careful observation of gregarious animals 

 in a wild state, or even (if a more special definition be 

 wanted) of large crowds or masses of men, might 

 throw some light upon this subject, and it would, at 

 any rate, be approaching it upon a broader basis, and 

 by methods less tainted with our silly prejudices, 

 than has hitherto been done. 



But when I speak of gregarious animals in a wild 



