CHAPTER XXX 



ANIMAL DEFENCES— RETREAT 



Having now considered Active and Passive Defence at con- 

 siderable length, it only remains to speak of that method which 

 has been described as a "strategic movement to the rear", in 

 order to make the section complete. 



Animals which are subject to the attacks of powerful enemies 

 often possess very considerable powers of locomotion, and in such 

 cases retreat is usually the first instinct acted upon, though it not 

 infrequently happens that such creatures, when actually driven to 

 bay, are able to give a very good account of themselves. It is re- 

 cognized that in human warfare a successful retreat is the most 

 difficult of all tasks to perform, though in this case both sides are 

 fully provided with aggressive weapons, and innumerable devices 

 are adopted to baffle the pursuing enemy. Ingenious methods 

 answering the same end are by no means unknown among animals, 

 and several of them will be mentioned in their proper place. 



Retreat among Mam^nals. — As might be expected, the more 

 intelligent Monkeys display a good deal of method in the way they 

 effect a retreat, some of those which live in troops placing sentinels 

 before they begin their plunder of a native crop, and when alarmed 

 retiring in good order, taking every advantage of cover. 



Vogt (in Mammalia) gives the following lively account of 

 the mode of life among Baboons (fig. 507), which shows how 

 carefully arrangements are made by such creatures for retreat 

 when alarmed: — " So far as our information goes, it would seem 

 that all baboons live mostly in considerable troops, often number- 

 ing several hundred, and in these there are always several old 

 males and females, so that the leadership does not, as among 

 most other monkeys, fall to a single patriarch. . . . The troop 

 passes the night in caves in the rock, and in grottoes in inac- 

 cessible precipices, all closely huddled together, and at sunrise 



