346 THE WONDER OF LIFE 



series of social animals we find every grade between mere 

 gregariousness and well-defined societary forms, and no 

 one can pretend that any hard and fast line can be drawn. 

 There are, however, certain features whose presence, in 

 whole or in part, is diagnostic of a real society. (1) The 

 first of these is the capacity for corporate action. When 

 a herd of herbivores unites against the attack of carnivores 

 when the Uttle cliff-swallows unite in a mob and drive off 

 the falcon, when a band of monkeys nearly tear to pieces 

 the eagle which has swooped upon one of their number, 

 when the wolves himt in packs, and the pelicans form a 

 Hving seine-net, wading inwards in a diminishing crescent 

 towards the shore, there is struck beyond doubt the note 

 of society. 



Bees will act together to deal with an intruder who has 

 got into the hive, perhaps sealing him up with wax ; they 

 will combine to carry away some foreign object ; they appear 

 to practise division of labour ; they somehow make one 

 another aware of valuable discoveries of nectar. 



Yet one must not be too generous. Thus, to take a 

 single example, there may be some truth in the view of 

 Netter that the ventilating bees who make a current by 

 their wings at the entrance to the hive are bees in respiratory 

 difficulties. 



Spiders are characteristically individualistic except in 

 their maternal care, but a few social species are known, 

 e.g. Stegodyphus gregalis from South Africa, S. sarasinorum 

 from Madras, and Vloborus republicanus from Venezuela. 

 The Madras form is described by N. S. Jambunathan as 

 forming a sponge-hke nest of ramified canals, which is often 

 attached to the branches of trees or to the leaves of the 

 prickly pear. The number in a nest varies from 40 to 100, 



