220 SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR 
IV.—AnIMAL TRADITION 
In that interaction between instinct and intelligence which, 
when further detailed work has sifted and purified our know- 
ledge of the psychology of animal communities, may prove 
sufficient to account for the well-established facts, animal 
tradition will probably have to be recognized as of no little 
importance. When a newly emerging ant or bee, or a young 
bird or mammal is born into a community where certain modes 
of behaviour are already in full swing, an imitative tendency 
of the follow-my-leader type may lead it to fall in line with 
the traditional habits. It is said that young ants follow the 
older workers about the nest, and are ‘“ trained to a knowledge 
of domestic duties, especially in the case.of larve.”” On the 
other hand, we have seen that, in certain observed cases, the 
queen ant is the solitary starting-point of a new community, 
and that the division of labour follows with the increasing 
numbers of the newly formed social group; so that, in such 
cases, whatever part tradition may play in the later phases of 
social life, it cannot afford a sufficient account of the division 
of labour in the earlier history of the community. We need, 
however, fuller information concerning the continued life- 
history of such communities under natural conditions, and as 
to how far they remain self-contained without any incorpora- 
tion of older members from adjoining nests. In the case of 
bees, where the old queen departs with a swarm, there may be 
greater continuity of tradition. But how far this is a necessary 
factor in social development is at present a matter of con- 
jecture. In the herd of mammals and the flock of birds, and 
in all the family and social life in these classes of animals, the 
example of elders, without any imitation of the higher reflective 
type, can scarcely be without its influence on the behaviour of 
the young which, one would suppose, would tend to fall in with 
the ways which had become traditional in the species. Pro- 
fessor Wesley Mills tells us that a mongrel pup, whose psychical 
development he carefully watched, showed “ extraordinarily 
