3l8 WILD TRAITS IN TAME ANIMALS. 



beasts displaying the traits under discussion are 

 natural socialists. Concerning one apparent ex- 

 ception — the hare — I shall have something to 

 say further on. Now rabbits and deer have 

 not brains enough to organise themselves into 

 co-operative societies or to start political insti- 

 tutions for the public good, after the custom 

 of civilised human beings. Mother Nature there- 

 fore undertakes the business for them ; and 

 although in the case of the lower animals the 

 process is quite independent of anything ap- 

 proaching intelligence, the result is curiously 

 the same in both instances. 



Wherever creatures live in communities they 

 do so for mutual protection. Sometimes they 

 may adopt warlike measures and form them- 

 selves into armies ; at other times they find 

 safety by combining their wits instead of their 

 weapons. When their only means of safety is 

 flight, they will in some way utilise the com- 

 bination so as to aid one another in this method 

 of avoiding destruction. 



Now if all the deer of a herd and all the 

 rabbits of a warren warn their associates by 

 displaying white tails when they flee from an 

 enemy, it is plain that each member of the 



